Meanwhile, Turkey has become increasingly incensed at purported Russian violations of its airspace during Moscow’s flight missions in Syria.
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The Pentagon said U.S.-led coalition aircraft bombing Islamist militants in Syria had been re-routed at least once in the last six days to avoid a close encounter with Russian planes.
The talks, he said, also encompassed the importance of advancing a political transition away from Syrian President Bashar Assad and toward a new government. The groups include Western-backed fighters.
Ground forces loyal to the government targeted insurgents in the Ghab Plain area of western Syria, with heavy barrages of surface-to-surface missiles as Russian warplanes bombed from above, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a rebel fighting there.
Syrian state media and regional pro-government channels made no mention of new Russian strikes or the ground attacks on Wednesday.
He said Russia’s response had been to intensify its airstrikes.
The Russian Defence Ministry posted a graphic on its website showing 26 missiles overflying Iran and Iraq before striking inside Syria. Saudi Arabia and its allies have long supported those groups trying to overthrow Assad, while Russian Federation sees little differentiation with most of the Syrian rebel groups who want to unseat Moscow’s longtime ally.
As for the sensational reports about the Russian cruise missiles hitting Islamic State targets, this seems to be a lie too.
Russia’s military build-up in Syria included a growing naval presence, long-range rockets and a battalion of troops backed by Moscow’s most modern tanks, the US ambassador to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said.
“The fact that we launched precision weapons from the Caspian Sea to the distance of about 1,500 km and hit all the designated targets shows good work by military industrial plants and good skills of personnel”, Putin said. “Of course it’s early to draw conclusions, but what has been done so far deserves a highly positive assessment”.
The senior Syrian military officer said Russia’s air strikes have weakened the rebel groups, while the army now can have a stronger position.
Russian Federation has dramatically altered the balance of power in the Middle East with its robust intervention in the Syrian civil war. “They are not targeting the Islamic State as they claimed”, said Raed Fares, a Syrian activist in Idlib. “Russian Federation is laying the groundwork for a ground offensive in these areas, likely involving Iranian and/or Hezbollah forces, given the depleted state of Assad’s troop reserves”, Horowitz added. It was mostly the former that Putin sought to play up on Wednesday. The official lines will be that they are not fighting with or against each other, just fighting parallel wars at the same time in the same country.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned Thursday that Russian Federation will soon experience consequences as it ramps up its military campaign in Syria.
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Iran’s FARS news agency, which CNN describes as “semi-official”, said neither Iran nor Russian Federation has confirmed the information provided by the two U.S. officials yet.
