Syria regime advances with Russian air support

Russian strikes have focused on areas in Hama province and neighboring Idlib where insurgents have advanced in recent months.

Putin said Sunday that the Russian operation’s objective was to “stabilise the legitimate authorities and create conditions for finding a political compromise”.

Syrian state television also reported that Syrian planes had carried out their own strikes in Hama province on Saturday.

Russia’s makes little distinction between ISIS and the other rebel groups fighting Assad. US-trained Syrian rebels gave equipment to Nusra: United States military But the program was troubled from the start, with a few of the first class of less than 60 fighters coming under attack from al Qaeda’s Syria wing, Nusra Front, in their battlefield debut. The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss details of the program, did not know whether the Pentagon would also provide arms to the rebel forces.

Moscow began its military campaign against terrorists wreaking havoc in Syria on September 30 at a request from the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

In an audio recording, a Saudi militant cleric based in Syria urged fighters to unite, mobilize and attack Syrian forces in different provinces in order to avert “consecutive collapses”.

The USA announcement marked the effective end to a short-lived $580 million program to train and equip units of fighters at sites outside of Syria, after its disastrous launch this year fanned criticism of President Barack Obama’s war strategy.

Russian warplanes struck both Latakia and Idlib provinces yesterday and today, including a raid in Idlib that destroyed a base belonging to a rebel group that has received USA weapons, it said.

The move also follows Russia’s stepped up engagement in Syria. Neither country has banned cluster munitions.

Russian officials say their airstrikes are targeting mainly Islamic State militants, but most of the strikes are hitting areas where the extremist group is not present. Instead, a Defense Department official said, a “much smaller” training center would be set up in Turkey, where the USA would train a select group of “enablers” how to call in US airstrikes against ISIL.

Ali Akbar Velayati who was speaking to Al-Alam TV Network’s “From Tehran” aired Friday night, said that Russian Federation cooperated with Iran in Syria in fighting terrorist groups, a thing western sources mentioned as well; “we do not deny working with Russian Federation in Syria and Iraq; we are friends and allies of Syria and Iraq”, he added.