“Syria is a complex situation with various military forces and militias in close proximity, but coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit”.
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“We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State”, she said.
A senior administration official told CNN late Saturday the USA relayed its regret through Russian Federation for the “unintentional loss of life”.
It was halted immediately after the coalition was notified by the Russians, the official said.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman says 62 Syrian soldiers have been reported killed in a USA -led coalition airstrike on a military base.
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted as telling the Rossiya-24 TV station that the attack had jeopardised a Russian-US ceasefire agreement.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the airstrikes on Saturday killed at least 83 Syrian soldiers and injured 120 in the area of Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria.
A U.S. official told CNN they broadly described the geographic area to the Russians – as is customary – before the strike but did not give a precise location.
The Syrian army said the strike allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun their position.
The rebel official said it was not possible for Russian Federation to be a sponsor of the agreement while it bombed the country night and day, while on the other side America had the role of spectator.
If the strikes were a targeting error, the ministry said the bombings were evidence of Washington’s stubborn refusal to coordinate its military action in Syria with Russian Federation.
“If this airstrike was carried out due to an error in the coordinates of the target, it is a direct effect of (the) USA side’s unwillingness to coordinate its actions against terrorist groups with Russia”, Sputnik quoted the spokesman as saying.
Russia said it was calling an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over the US air strikes while issuing a stern warning that the attacks have seriously jeapoardised the US-Russia peace plan for Syria.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said conditions in Syria were deteriorating, adding that it believed the ceasefire had been breached 199 times by rebels and saying the United States would be responsible if it were to collapse.
The Syrian military said it viewed the strike as evidence the United States and the coalition support ISIS. It called the incident a serious and blatant aggression, SANA reported.
Lavrov noted the “refusal by an array of illegal armed groups to join the cease-fire” and Washington’s obligation to “separate units of the moderate opposition from terrorist groupings”.
The official says the notification was sent through Russian Federation.
The ceasefire has offered some respite from violence in the civil war, which has killed an estimated 430,000 people since 2011 and touched off an worldwide refugee crisis. The Russian military says insurgents have held up the delivery by firing on government positions along the main route leading into besieged, rebel-held districts, in violation of the cease-fire. The statement claimed five US aircraft took part in the airstrike.
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Israel has largely remained on the sidelines of the Syrian war but has carried out reprisals on Syrian positions when errant fire previously landed in Israel.
