Russia’s Defense Ministry said earlier that Russian warplanes took off on Tuesday from a base in Iran to target IS and other militants in Syria.
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Russia’s Defense Ministry says that Russian warplanes have taken off from a base in Iran to target Islamic State fighters in Syria.
It was the first time Russian Federation has used the territory of another nation, apart from Syria itself, to launch such strikes since the Kremlin launched a bombing campaign to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in September a year ago. Its military presence in Iran bolsters Russia’s growing image as a central player in the Middle East, challenging American supremacy.
Tehran-Moscow cooperation in the fight against terrorist groups in Syria is strategic, Shamkhani was quoted as saying by IRNA on Tuesday.
Moscow and Tehran have been cooperating on operations in Syria already, both providing forces to support the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.
In Syria’s multidimensional war, Moscow has provided air power to back Mr. Assad’s military, while Iran and the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah have sent advisers and fighters to support government forces. To reach Syria, they would have had to use the air space of another neighboring country, probably Iraq.
A statement by Russia’s Defence Ministry said three command posts, five major ammunition depots and training camps had been destroyed.
Earlier on August 16, Rossiya-24 reported that the Russian bombers had arrived at the Hamadan air base.
In a statement on one of its Telegram channels, the hard-line militant group said it killed 50 fighters travelling on the bus, from the Failaq al-sham and the al-Zinki groups. The strikes have killed 122 civilians, he said.
In this Tuesday, July.
“It is much heavier”, he told Reuters.
Fighting for Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial capital and its largest city, has become the focal point of the nation’s civil war, now in its sixth year.
On Sunday evening, rebels opened a new front, sending a truck bomb into the western Zahraa neighborhood, according to the Twitter account of the Islamic Front, one of the factions fighting for the city.
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Russian Federation has admitted deploying special forces in Syria but characterised their role as “advisers”, despite several combat deaths, while Iran has also sent members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and is alleged to by funding Shia militias fighting in both Syria and Iraq.
