It’s not clear if these were the same missiles that USA officials were talking about Thursday.
Advertisement
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the danger of a confrontation and noted the importance of putting in place protocols as “a way of making sure that planes aren’t going to be shooting at each other and making things worse”.
The flight path for the Kalibr cruise missiles, which had not previously been used in combat conditions, took them over Iran and Iraq, the newspaper reported.
Russian Federation has been repeatedly accused by Western politicians and media of launching strikes against facilities irrelevant with the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group and causing civilian losses since it started operations in Syria on September 30.
The U.S. embassy in Ankara said in a statement earlier that the Patriots “will be re-deployed to the USA for critical modernization upgrades”.
However, speaking to reporters in Rome, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called the Russian campaign of airstrikes in Syria a “fundamental mistake”.
Even though the cruise missiles, launched from the Caspian Sea Wednesday, landed in a rural part of the country, officials raised concerns about Russia’s military actions in the region.
Russian Federation said its warplanes also dropped precision guided bombs on a command post in IS stronghold Raqa, killing two senior IS field commanders and a few 200 fighters. Since then, the Pentagon has chiefly relied on bombers and armed drones.
Canada is leaving it up to the U.S.to ensure those safety rules with the Russians are determined.
Moscow has denied accusations that its ramped up military presence in Syria is targeting opponents of embattled President Bashar al-Assad more than Islamic State. They would also be backed by Mr Assad’s Lebanese Hezbollah allies and by Shia militia fighters from Iraq, while the Russians would provide air support.
The Russian Defense Ministry, however, took strong issue with the CNN report in a posting on Facebook Thursday.
“While conducting these operations, we always record the image of the target before and after the hit,” he said.
While cruise missiles are traditionally used at the beginning of bombing campaigns to hit multiple high-value targets simultaneously while avoiding radar detection and maintaining the element of surprise, Russia’s strikes did none of those things.
“This is the fact”.
Advertisement
“Otherwise one would have to acknowledge that IS facilities – located at a considerable distance from each other – exploded all by themselves”, Konashenkov added. Times correspondents Carol W. Williams in Los Angeles and Patrick McDonnell in Beirut also contributed.
