The hills around Salma were littered with blown-up tanks and other vehicles.
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But negotiations look increasingly likely to stall with a dispute over the composition of the opposition negotiating team, and opposition demands that Russian Federation halt bombing of civilian areas and the Syrian government lift sieges as goodwill measures before they will come to the table.
The Geneva talks were scheduled to open on January 25, but diplomats have said they could be delayed if the question of the opposition delegation is not resolved. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj.
Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, began an air campaign in support of Damascus in September.
Salma had been under rebel control since 2012 despite the government holding most of the rest of the Latakia province – the heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
“We do know it would better if we can reach a political solution but we are prepared … if that’s not possible, to have a military solution to this operation in taking out Daesh”, said Vice President Joe Biden, who was using another name for the militant group aka either ISIL or ISIS, while speaking at a press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Reuters reported.
Controlled by the Islamic State jihadist group, Khasham lies just 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of the provincial capital, most of which is now held by IS.
The town, which is home to around 10,000 people, sits on hills overlooking the Mediterranean coast about 40 kilometres away. He said the area had many ammunition depots, holding massive caches of explosives, which also were targeted by Russian warplanes.
On Sunday, Syrian troops captured the town of Rabiaa and the village of Rawda in the coastal province of Latakia, their latest push since Russian Federation began airstrikes past year, according to state news agency SANA and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syria’s five-year civil war has killed a quarter of a million people, displaced half the country and enabled the radical Islamic State group to seize a third of Syria’s territory.
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“We are confident that with good initiative in the next day or so those talks can get going”, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in Saudi Arabia Saturday.
