“A Syrian warplane belonging to the Syrian regime was brought down when targeted by fighters from the IS (Daesh) in the city of Deir al-Zour”, Amaq said in an online statement.
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Syrian ally Russian Federation said 62 Syrian soldiers were killed and at least 100 more wounded in strikes by “warplanes from the worldwide anti-jihadist coalition”. The strike comes at a particularly sensitive time in US and Russian efforts to forge a cease-fire in Syria’s civil war, as each has accused the other of failing to comply with an agreement they struck a week ago for a ceasefire.
The forces had been tracking the position for a significant amount of time before the strike, and the location was in an area the coalition had struck in the past, it said.
Russian Federation called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which convened Saturday evening to discuss the air raid.
This file photo taken shows armed men in uniform identified by Syrian Democratic forces as USA special operations forces riding in the back of a pickup truck in the village of Fatisah in the northern Syrian province of Raqa.
In response to her remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote that in order for Power “to learn the meaning of the word “shame”, she should visit Syria and “meet people who live there, despite the fact that for nearly six years already their country undergoes a bloody experiment, with the active involvement of Washington”.
SANA quotes an unnamed military official as saying Sunday that dozens of IS fighters were killed in the offensive under the cover of Syrian airstrikes.
It called the strike a “serious and blatant attack on Syria and its military”, and “firm proof of the US support of Daesh and other terrorist groups”, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
Russia, along with Iran and Arab Shiite militias, backs President Bashar al-Assad, while some of the Sunni rebels seeking to unseat him are supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf Arab states.
Konashenkov said Syrian authorities told the Russians that 62 soldiers were killed and more than 100 wounded.
Defense Ministry spokesman Maj.
Konashenkov says the airstrike on Saturday took place near the Deir el-Zour airport in eastern Syria and was carried out by two F-16s and two A-10s.
Syria’s government said it was doing all that was necessary for the arrival of aid to those in need of it in all parts of the country, particularly to eastern Aleppo.
If the strikes were a targeting error, the ministry said the bombings were evidence of Washington’s refusal to consult Russian Federation over its military action in Syria.
“If we did get this wrong, which it looks like we did, it’s not something we meant to do”, the official said, adding that the Central Command plans to investigate how targeting personnel could have confused a Syrian military unit with Islamic State fighters.
The Syrian army has been fighting IS near Deir el-Zour since a year ago.
She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and “if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life”.
The accord calls for a nationwide truce, but that excludes attacks on the Islamic State and a former al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
About 25 minutes into the strike, the Russians called the United States and said coalition forces were hitting Syrian troops, the USA official said.
Russian Federation has accused Washington of failing to rein in the rebels, and on Saturday Mr Putin asked why the United States has insisted on not releasing a written copy of the agreement. “While Syria remains a dynamic and complex operating environment, Australia would never target a known Syrian military unit”, the Defense Department in Canberra said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Saturday and was urged to press the rebels for safe passage guarantees the Russian foreign ministry said.
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 Syrian military also said the airstrike enabled ISIS militants, whom the USA coalition was established to target, to advance on a strategic hill.
On the other hand, the United States held Russian Federation responsible for delays in delivering aid to desperate civilians, especially in Aleppo.
Under the agreement, aid agencies should have unrestricted access to besieged populations.
Fresh shelling and clashes were reported overnight in some areas of the war-torn country, but the US-Russia brokered truce which took effect on Monday appeared to be largely holding.
The U.S.is not known to have directly struck Syria’s Assad regime forces at any point during the five-year conflict.
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At least 250,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.
