Obama talks Russia’s escalation in Syria on “60 Minutes”

As many as four of the 26 long-range cruise missiles that Russian Federation said it fired at Syrian targets landed instead in Iran. One ministry source also told Fars that all of the Russian missiles hit their intended targets.

It was unclear whether the missiles caused any damage, they said.

Given the likely flight profile of the SS-N-30As – through Iran and Iraq – Iranian officials at least had a few warning of the strike and most likely deconflicted their airspace to make way for the missiles.

France hosted a meeting with leaders of Russian Federation, Germany and Ukraine in Paris for talks about Ukraine which were likely to be overshadowed by the conflict in Syria.

Also on Friday, the Syrian army, supported by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and Russian warplanes, continued a land operation against rebel factions in the central and northwestern areas of the country.

On Wednesday, Moscow upped the ante dramatically by launching a series of cruise missile attacks and providing direct air support for a Syrian army ground attack for the first time targetting the village of Latmeen in Hama province, Syrian military sources said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the advance by the extremists, which began Thursday night, is the most significant in months.

Several senior Iranian Guards officers have been killed in Syria since the start of the civil war, which erupted after protests in 2011 against President Bashar al-Assad were put down with force. To put that in perspective that’s like launching a Russian cruise missile from Topeka and hitting a target in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, France’s defense minister says the country’s air force has launched a second air strike overnight in Syria against an Islamic State training camp.

IS militants reached their closest position yet to Aleppo in northern Syria at dawn on Friday after hours of ferocious fighting with rival opponents of Assad, a monitoring group reported.

“Brig. Gen. Hamedani was martyred by Daesh terrorists during an advisory mission in the suburb of Aleppo” on Thursday afternoon, said the statement read on IRNA, using an Arabic acronym for the group. He said new fighting units, including one called the Fourth Assault Corps, had been set up to wage the campaign and the army now held the military initiative.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said USA schemes for an anti-government no-fly zone over Syria had been shelved in light of the Russian military intervention.

The Islamic State group has strongholds in Raqqa and Aleppo, while Syria’s al-Qaida branch, the Nusra Front, has a strong presence in Idlib.