Russian planes destroy ISIS command post, training camp in Syria

The annotations on the image were made by the source and indicate the center of the target, and its direction, yellow.

While Russian officials have maintained that their intervention in Syria is targeting IS fighters, the Kremlin has acknowledged it is also taking aim at “a list” of militias aside from the jihadist group.

The scene in Baghdad was like something out of a movie: A Russian general appeared at around 9 a.m. on Wednesday at the USA embassy in Baghdad, warning America to clear the skies in neighbouring Syria. While Washington took pains to insist it still considered the “moderate” opposition vital to Syria’s future and was not abandoning them, withholding US air cover could further jeopardize beleaguered rebel forces.

McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, has long advocated a more forceful U.S. position in the Middle East, particularly in countering Assad, and argues that the “failure of American leadership” under President Barack Obama has only emboldened his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

“We certainly are not going to plunge head-on into this conflict”, Putin said. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the strike.

Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in televised comments on Thursday that the Russian air force in the past 24 hours has hit 12 Islamic State targets, destroying among other things a command center and two arms depots.

Russian Federation on Wednesday carried out its first airstrikes in Syria.

The reputable Su-25SM can become the most effective means to support the Syrian government troops in the fight against the Islamic State and in the support of President Bashar al-Assad. US officials have not ruled out that rebel forces could receive air cover if attacked by Assad’s air force.

Commanders were heavily vetted by the CIA, with the Wall Street Journal reporting in January that rebel leaders had their email messages and phone calls tapped by U.S. intelligence, in order to determine their allegiances and levels of control over their fighters. From Idlib, the Islamist-dominated Army of Conquest has been swinging between pushing into the government’s coastal stronghold of Latakia and into al-Ghab Plain for a redoubled effort south toward Hama and the city of Homs, referred to by many rebels as “the capital of the revolution”.

“Now the agreement is that there will be much fuller cooperation [between these countries, groups]… and this will act as a pretext under which Russian planes can fly over Iraq to carry supplies to [the Syrian regime]”.

The USA also accused Iran of increasing assistance to Iraqi Shia militias, one of which was designated a terrorist organisation, “in response to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant incursion into Iraq, and has continued to support other militia groups in the region”.