Syria extends offensive to retake territory in west

The USA embassy in Ankara said in a statement earlier that the Patriots “will be redeployed to the United States for critical modernization upgrades”.

The West also denounced Russian Federation for repeatedly violating Turkish airspace and launching cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea.

The Russian defence ministry has also denied the report, saying all of its cruise missile have hit their predetermined targets.

Russian military officials say cruise missiles fired from their warships this week at Islamic State and other “terrorists” have all hit their targets in Syira.

Syrian state television said in a newsflash that attacks carried out by government forces in the area had killed and wounded a number of “terrorists”, a term it uses to describe all insurgents in Syria. US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leaders condemned the attacks as an effort to prop up the Syrian government of Bashar Assad, rather than to target Islamic State fighters.

The Pentagon for weeks watched Russian Federation build up its military presence in northwestern Syria, but the launch of Moscow’s campaign seemed to catch officials off guard.

“We would not make any concessions in connection to our border security and air space security”, he said.

“However unpleasant and “unexpected” it may be for our colleagues at the Pentagon and Langley [CIA’s Virginia headquarters] about yesterday’s attacks by high-accuracy weapons on the [SIS] infrastructure in Syria – all the same, all rockets fired from ships found their targets”, said a ministry spokesman, Maj.

Last month, Iran granted permission for Russian planes to fly over its territory en route to Syria, Russian news agencies, as it and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah were reportedly preparing for a new offensive in the war-torn country.

In the meantime, the ISIS militant group reported Friday a rapid advancement toward the city of Aleppo in northern Syria, at a time the Western countries have accused Russian Federation once again of giving priority to support the Syrian regime in its air campaign, rather than fighting terrorism.

Moscow says its air strikes are targeting assets of the extremist Islamic State (IS) organization.

“The Department of Defense has received a formal response from the Russian ministry of defense regarding DoD’s proposal to ensure safe air operations over Syria”, Cook said.