Russian Missile Against IS Has a Message: That’s for Paris

Russian long-range bombers and navy ships have launched 101 cruise missiles in four days, including 18 fired on Friday.

The Islamic State group has positions in Aleppo province; Idlib has the presence of the Nusra militant group.

More than 1,300 people, around two-thirds of them combatants, have been killed in Russian airstrikes in Syria since Moscow’s aerial campaign began on September 30, a monitor said Friday.

The powerful messages are believed to be in response to the attacks in Paris last week in which 130 people died the Russian passenger jet which was brought down over the Siani desert, killing 224 people.

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.

The Britain-based Observatory said it had documented at least 50 strikes in different parts of the oil-rich province, large parts of which are controlled by the Islamic State group.

Following last week’s gun and bomb attacks in Paris, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed his military to work with French forces as “allies”, fuelling speculation about deeper military cooperation between Russia and the West against Islamic State that would help thaw relations more generally.

Unverified images circulated on the Internet of Syria-bound U.S. missiles bearing the handwritten inscription “From Paris with love”.

But with the French stepping up their involvement in Syria following the brutal murder of 129 civilians in Paris by ISIS operatives on November 13, the war in Syria is preparing to morph yet again.

IS reportedly makes millions of dollars in revenue from oil fields under its control, and the coalition has regularly targeted oil infrastructure held by the group.