A Russian defence ministry spokesman said 62 Syrian soldiers had been reported killed in the US-led coalition air strike on a military base.
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The Foreign Ministry said Saturday’s incident was a result of Washington’s “stubborn refusal” to cooperate with Moscow in fighting Islamic State, the Nusra Front – now renamed Jabhat Fatah al Sham – and “other terrorist groups”. It said the airstrikes were “on goal and planned in advance”, and killed dozens of Syrian soldiers.
The jet came down in the Jebel Tharda area which overlooks the government’s Deir al Zor military airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, said.
The Syrian army said in a statement last week that the seven-day truce ends at midnight Sunday.
In an interview with the Tasnim News Agency on Sunday, Sattaam Mujhim al-Dandal slammed as a lie the United States claim that the airstrikes on the Syrian military forces were a mistake.
The United States relayed its “regret” through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.
The air attack caused a bitter row between the USA and Russian Federation at the United Nations Security Council on Saturday night, with each country’s representatives walking out while the other was speaking.
He said he had never seen “such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness” as displayed by Ms Power at the acrimonious meeting.
The U.S. military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russian Federation informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to her remarks on Facebook, saying Power would understand “the meaning of the word “shame” if she visited Syria and met the people living there in “a bloody experiment, with the active involvement of Washington”.
Churkin was upset with U.S. ambassador Samantha Power, who lambasted Russia’s support of the Syrian regime to the media outside the meeting while he was speaking.
“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”, CENTCOM said.
Syria’s army general command said in a statement the attack was “conclusive evidence” of U.S. support for Islamic State, noting that the strike was “dangerous and blatant aggression”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already questioned United States commitment to the ceasefire, claiming Washington was not prepared to break with “terrorist elements” battling Bashar al Assad’s forces.
The US admitted the coalition strike on regime positions near Deir Ezzor expressing “regret” over the loss of life that it said was a mistake.
The Syrian military said it viewed the strike as evidence the United States and the coalition support ISIS.
Australia also participated in the strikes and the Australian Department of Defence offered its condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded in the incident.
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The deal was meant to allow the safe passage of aid to besieged areas of Syria, but some 20 trucks have been waiting in Turkey since Monday, unable to travel to rebel-held east Aleppo.
