Iraq closes northern airspace amid Russian air campaign in Syria

Russian Federation said it fired cruise missiles for a fourth day against IS targets.

Russian Federation has released footage of its ships firing cruise missiles at military targets in Syria.

“Pilots and technicians of Hmeymim airbase have sent their message to terrorists by priority airmail”, said a caption accompanying the post.

The country’s Ministry of Defence say the 18 strikes were aimed at extremists in the Syrian cities of Aleppo, Idlib and Raqqa – Islamic State’s de facto capital.

Iraq closed its northern airspace to commercial flights yesterday for at least two days because of military traffic from Russia’s air campaign in neighbouring Syria, a spokesman for Erbil International Airport said.

Shoigu said the strikes this week inflicted significant casualties on IS, including more than 600 militants killed in just one strike in the province of Deir el-Zour.

But he added that “the majority of Russian air strikes are still against moderate Syrian opposition forces, which is clearly concerning, and those strikes are in support of the Syrian regime” of President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia this week launched massive strikes on Raqqa in response to confirmation that the group had blown up a plane full of Russian tourists over Sinai in Egypt.

Earlier this week, Masrour Barzani, the head of intelligence and security in Iraqi Kurdistan, said IS was not significantly weakened by the aerial bombardments of the US-led coalition and Russian Federation. These attacks have deprived ISIS of $1.5million (£990,000) in daily income from oil sales.

This campaign against ISIS is being carried out in collaboration with the French armed forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the country’s military to step up attacks on terrorist positions in Syria, after Moscow confirmed that a homemade bomb brought its civilian plane down over Egypt in a terror attack, claimed by Daesh terrorists. It contends its main target is Islamic State militants who control large swathes of Syria and Iraq, but it has been accused of hitting other targets, including territory occupied by Western-backed rebels.