Iran commander killed in Syria

Russia’s entry into Syria’s civil war has complicated America’s more than year-old campaign of air strikes against Islamic State.

It said the militants seized the villages of Tal Qrah, Tal Sousin and Kfar Qares north of Aleppo city.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was the biggest advance by Islamic State since it launched an offensive against rebels in the northern Aleppo countryside near the Turkish border in late August.

Last month, Gen. Lloyd Austin III who is leading the U.S. offensive against ISIL, said during a Senate committee hearing that the massive program yielded only “four or five” fighters, instead of the 5,400 it was meant to train this year, after the program was formally launched in December.

But many Russian strikes have taken place in areas of western Syria held by other insurgent groups, and Western leaders have accused Russia of intervening primarily to support President Bashar al-Assad.

“Unlike CNN, we do not talk or cite anonymous sources and our missiles struck their target”, they retorted on their Facebook page.

Moscow says it is targeting mainly Islamic State militants, but U.S. officials and Syrian rebels have said the strikes have hit mainstream rebels for the most part and are created to shore up Assad’s embattled government and troops.

Makushev said Russian Federation has been bombing command posts and communication centres, ammunition depots as well as training camps in Raqa, Latakia, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo.

Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

Syrian state media and opposition activists are reporting fierce clashes in central Syria as government forces backed by Russian warplanes try to advance against insurgents.

On Friday, Iran announced Hamedani had been killed this week in Syria in an ISIS attack.

The Russian defense ministry said in a statement that Russian planes flew 64 sorties and targeted 54 sites in the past 24 hours, without elaborating.

An Iranian official said Hamedani was a close ally of the head of the Quds Force, which is an overseas arm of the IRGC.

The group said it was unclear what had caused the explosion, which occurred at a building used by the IS to store munitions.

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.