Russia strike killed Syria government troops

The U.S.-led Combined Joint Task Force coordinating coalition activities against the Islamic State group says the alliance carried out airstrikes in the province where Syria accuses it of hitting government troops, but it says there is no indication it hit any Syrian soldiers.

British warplanes last week joined French and American aircraft in conducting strikes against the Islamic State in eastern Syria under the umbrella of the US-led coalition. Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said Russian Federation did fly long-range bomber missions into Syria on Sunday, but admitted, “we have not been able to correlate one to the other”. We did not strike any vehicles or personnel targets.

Syria expressed outrage Monday after a suspected US-led coalition strike for the first time killed regime troops, but the coalition denied its warplanes hit an army base.

Four soldiers were killed in the bombardment, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

The Syrian government says U.S.-led coalition airstrikes were responsible for the deaths of three government soldiers on Sunday.

Shashank Joshi, of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, said that he was sceptical of the claim that the US-led coalition was to blame.

“We’ve seen those Syrian reports but we did not conduct any strikes in that part of Deir al-Zour yesterday”, he said.

The Islamic State plans to build its own state in Iraq and Syria with government departments and an economic plan chalked out for self-sufficiency, revealed a leaked IS manual.

Its strikes have regularly targeted Deir el-Zour province in eastern Syria, including oilfields that are a source of income for the jihadi group.

“This hampers efforts to combat terrorism and proves once again that this coalition lacks seriousness and credibility to effectively fight terrorism”, the Syrian letter said. The strike also destroyed three armoured vehicles, four military vehicles, two heavy machine guns and a depot of arms and ammunition, the ministry added.

The oil-rich kingdom has repeatedly called for al-Assad to step down to end his country’s multi-sided conflict, which is estimated to have claimed more than 250,000 lives.

It is the first time in the Syria conflict that the coalition has been accused of targeting government forces. The attack took place in Deir Ezzor province, which is mostly controlled by Isis, but there are pockets of government held territory such as Saeqa camp. The U.S. denies its airstrikes killed Syrian troops.

“Reports of coalition involvement are false”, he wrote.

Russian Federation began its campaign September 30, saying its airstrikes are meant to weaken IS and other “terrorists” in Syria.

The Observatory said in late October that US-led raids had killed 3,276 IS fighters, 147 members of Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front or Islamist groups, and 226 civilians.

The monitoring group’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said air strikes hit an ISIL headquarters and bases to the north, east, and southeast of Raqqa city – its de facto capital.