Mr Putin’s official spokesperson seemed to shift the Kremlin’s position on Thursday, telling journalists that Russian forces were targeting a list of “well-known organisations” chosen in co-ordination with the Syrian regime.
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The scene in Baghdad was like something out of a movie: A Russian general appeared at around 9 a.m. on Wednesday at the US embassy in Baghdad, warning America to clear the skies in neighboring Syria.
Tensions between the USA and Russia are escalating over Russian airstrikes that apparently are serving to strengthen Syrian President Bashar Assad by targeting rebels – perhaps including a few aligned with the US – rather than hitting Islamic State fighters it promised to attack.
A man holds a baby that survived what activists said was a site hit by a barrel bomb dropped by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the old city of Aleppo, Syria, June 3, 2015.
The Pentagon held talks with officials in Moscow on Thursday, the second day of Russian bombing in Syria, in a bid to avoid mishaps in the region between the two military powers.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said he was striking against Islamic State and helping Assad.
“This decision corresponds with worldwide law, the mentality of our people and the special role that our country has always played in the Middle East”, Chaplin said.
“Today was see ISIS calls Syria home”, Kinzinger declared.
The Syrian National Council, a group that is fighting Assad, has claimed that at least 36 people, including dozens of civilians and five children, have died due to the Russian airstrikes.
“These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalization”, seven countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States said in a statement published on the website of the Turkish foreign ministry. That program is considered to have all but failed. Coalition aircraft also were active, hitting ISIL targets in Syria.
On February 28, 2014, Kerry briefed reporters after a phone call with Lavrov to discuss developments in Ukraine, where the Russians were infiltrating the military and menacing their neighbor. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter acknowledged this in a late-morning press conference at the Pentagon, saying that none of the Russian strikes had taken place in ISIS-controlled areas.
Russian officials have acknowledged the airstrikes in Syria have targeted groups other than the Islamic State, as known as ISIL and ISIS.
Officials said, however, that other unidentified groups were also being targeted. But so far that is not believed to have happened.
“From their perspective they’re all terrorists, and that’s a recipe for disaster”, Obama said in his most extensive comments on the topic since Russian Federation began its airstrikes on Monday.
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The Syrian Ambassador to Russia, Riad Haddad, told CNN’s Matthew Chance that Russians were fighting alongside the Syrians, to destroy not just ISIS but all of the other rebel groups in Syria.
