Iran: No answer on Russia missiles hit

Thomas Pierret, an expert on Islam in Syria, said the U.S.-led coalition bombing IS in Syria was “not very active” in Aleppo, and that Russia’s strikes there had struck mostly rebels, allowing IS to push forward.

The United States, which opposes Moscow’s support for Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, has ruled out cooperation with Russian Federation but has agreed to work on air safety procedures.

“And today, rather than being able to count on their support and maintain the base they had in Syria, which they’ve had for a long time”.

Administration officials said they believe Russia’s targeting of US-allied forces is aimed at shoring up the Syrian government and sending a message to the White House.

The development comes as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant reportedly seized several villages in Aleppo province from rival groups in what a few have described as the biggest advance by the ISIL since it launched its latest offensive.

Ilya Rogachev, director of the ministry’s department for new challenges and threats, told Interfax the coalition bombing campaign in Syria has not reduced the amount of territory under IS control and that IS numbers have increased since the airstrikes began.

And Washington said it would resume talks with Russian Federation over ways to avoid military accidents in Syria’s increasingly crowded airspace.

Russian Federation has denied that any of its missiles crashed, saying all 26 hit their targets.

“The militants are sustaining significant losses from the air-strikes, and are having to adjust their tactics, spreading out over a wider area, concealing themselves more thoroughly, or hiding in urban settlements”, Makushev said.

The Russian air war has provided cover for Assad’s ground troops, who have lost swathes of the north, east and south of the country to jihadists and rebel groups since the conflict erupted in 2011. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that there was intense fighting in the Hama and Idlib provinces, which border Latakia.

On Saturday, Syrian state media said the army had killed “75 Al-Nusra Front members and destroyed their bases and TOW (anti-tank) missiles and artillery-equipped armoured vehicles in Um Hreitan in Hama”.

In January, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria that also killed six Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it fired missiles from ships in the Caspian Sea for a second day and had hit weapons factories, arms dumps, command centers and training camps.