Syrian army, allies preparing attack in Aleppo area

“No one was killed or wounded”, senior embassy official Eldar Kurbanov said, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

He pledged that Moscow’s air war would have dire consequences.

Pro-government demonstrators were holding up photographs of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin moments before the explosion.

Since the civil war broke out in Syria, the USA and its allies have been providing weaponry and military aid to the rebel forces in Syria while Russian Federation has been granting military support to the Assad government.

Al-Jolani also offered a $2.3-million-dollar bounty for the Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who leads a Shiite militia that has fought alongside the Syrian regime.

“They are highly effective. They are breaking the Syrian army,” he said. “The situation in terms of ammunition and weapons with the Syrian opposition is excellent”.

More than 550 TOW missiles have been provided to the rebels, Lister said, citing rebel sources who track the shipments.

The Observatory’s director Rami Abdulrahman identified most of the reinforcing fighters as members of jihadist groups.

Much of the online statement was directed at the Russian airstrike campaign in Syria, which has stepped up in recent days.

The rebels are hoping for more military support.

Syria s army command said regime forces had captured Kafr Nabuda village in Hama, extending their advance around the key Damascus-Aleppo highway.

However, from a geopolitical perspective, Russia’s involvement signals Syria has become a venue for a power tussle between Russian Federation and the US. “We will, God willing, move to attack, not just defence”.

Such fresh battles mark the first instance that the Syrian military have carried out a broad offensive under direct Russian air support, which started in Syria late last month.

Sahl al-Ghab at the intersection of Hama, Latakia and Idlib provinces has been a major target for Russian air strikes.

The stepped-up supply of Saudi rockets, originally sold to Riyadh by the United States, is being seen as a direct reaction to the Russian attacks, raising the spectre of a proxy war between the former Cold War foes.

Both sides have sent reinforcements to the area.

Australian pilots have flown alongside coalition fighters in Iraq and recently began flying in Syria, Carter said.

In 2014, rebel groups vetted by the USA received TOW missiles for use in the provinces of Idlib, Aleppo, and Latakia.

“It is a clear act of terror meant to scare supporters of fighting terrorism”, Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, after two rockets struck the Russian embassy compound.

Russia’s air force hit 86 “terrorist” targets in Syria in the past 24 hours, the defence ministry said, in the highest one-day tally since it launched its bombing campaign on September 30.

The Russian intervention in the four-year Syrian war has caught US President Barack Obama’s administration off guard. Washington has been trying to defeat Islamic State while still calling for Assad’s downfall.

According to intercepted communications, the militants suffer from shortages of ammunition, small arms and grenade guns.