Russia says missiles fired at Syria reached their targets: agencies

According to CNN, it’s not clear if the missiles Shoigu spoke of on Wednesday are the same as the ones referenced by the USA officials reporters spoke with today.

But a source close to Hollande denied he had said this.

A Syrian military source told AFP that regime forces had advanced in a key mountain range.

“The [Russian] bombers… targeted eight militant strongholds in the province of Homs”.

Russian defence ministry said its air force hit 27 Islamic State targets overnight in the Syrian provinces of Homs, Hama and Raqqa.

So, no matter how unpleasant or “unexpected” for our colleagues in the Pentagon and Langley yesterday’s hit with a precision weapon on ISIS infrastructure in Syria was, all rockets fired from the ship hit their targets.

There was no immediate reaction from Tehran.

The terrain-hugging Kalibr cruise missiles, known by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation by the codename Sizzler, fly at an altitude of 50 metres and are accurate to within three metres, the Russian defence ministry said.

“We will assess the latest developments and their implications for the security of the alliance”, he added.

The Russian warplanes started on Wednesday their airstrikes against rebel positions in several Syrian areas, marking the first Russian military involvement in the war on terrorist groups in Syria.

Syria’s military chief-of-staff Lt Gen Ali Abdullah Ayoub said that his forces were launching a “big attack” to “liberate areas and towns which have suffered from terrorism”.

He did not specify where the operation would take place, but said Russian air strikes had helped “weaken the fighting capabilities of Daesh and other terrorist groups”, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

He said there was a “degree of co-existence” between the Assad regime and IS as part of the Syrian dictator’s strategy to “squeeze out” the moderate opposition.

That the pilots are equipped with AK-74’s – a refined version of the AK-47 – means that Moscow is at least aware of the risky nature of its intervention in the Syrian civil war on behalf of President Bashar Assad.

The US does not support the government of Assad and strongly believes that an end to the violence in the region needs to include “a political transition”. It was unclear whether it was Syrian or Russian.