ISIS fighters have seized villages close to the city of Aleppo from rival insurgents, a monitoring group said on Friday, despite a Russian air-and-sea campaign that Moscow says has targeted the militant group.
Advertisement
It has concentrated so far on clearing rebel areas south of Aleppo rather than the city itself, which is home to 2 million people and divided between government forces and rebels. There and in the surrounding countryside the front lines have always been static.
He said that over the previous 24 hours, 17 rebels and eight pro-regime fighters had been killed, while around 2000 families had fled the fighting.
A US official said the downed drone was Russian, but Moscow rejected the claim.
“The president said this: it’s obvious that if we don’t destroy these terrorists there, they will come to Russian Federation”, he said.
Russian planes also hit an ammunition depot and a vehicle workshop in Aleppo, used by ISIS fighters to “carry out terrorist acts in the heart of Syrian cities or against the positions of the government army”, according to the general.
Rebel forces shot down a low-flying military helicopter, but it was unclear if it was Syrian or Russian, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He also accused President Vladimir Putin of “prolonging” the bloodshed in Syria by propping up Bashar Assad’s regime.
The maps pinpointing the locations of the Russian strikes since 30 September published in various newspapers and on the website of the Institute for Study of War – the original source for the other maps – all show very clearly that they are overwhelmingly concentrated in Idlib province, the adjoining Hama province, and areas of Latakia province near Idlib.
The fighting north of Homs on Thursday centred around the town of Talbisseh on the highway, and regime operations in neighbouring Hama province have also focused on the key road.
The Turkish military on Friday said it shot down an aircraft of unknown nationality that had intruded into its airspace near the Syrian border.
To see what a quagmire the United States could fall into should Washington broaden its limited role in the Syrian civil war, look how deeply this country is involved after years of effort in Afghanistan as described to the House Armed Services Committee last week by Gen. John Campbell, commander of us and allied forces in Afghanistan. “As it was described to me, we are going to school on what the Russian military is capable of today”.
The war in Syria grew more complex as French warplanes hit ISIS targets in Raqqa and the terror group killed an Iranian commander outside Aleppo.
“All the airplanes of the Russian aviation group in the Syrian Arab Republic have returned … after accomplishing their combat tasks”, said the spokesman, Maj.
That “has meant that we have been unable to have as many convoys moving to get the supplies to the people in need”, he told AFP in an interview.
Advertisement
The ministry says Caspian Flotilla warships carried out massive strikes against suspected Islamic State facilities in Syria.
