Unidentified jet trails Turkish F-16s along Syrian border

Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member with the alliance’s second-biggest army, scrambled two F-16 jets on Saturday after a Russian aircraft crossed into its airspace near its southern province of Hatay, the Turkish foreign ministry said.

Turkey will not allow the repeated violation of its airspace by the planes of the Russian Air Forces, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said October. 6.

Stoltenberg told a news conference in Brussels the reported airspace incidents were “very serious”.

“I will not speculate on the motives… but this does not look like an accident and we have seen two of them”, Stoltenberg said of the air incursions in the Hatay region.

Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said Moscow would welcome a Turkish Defence Ministry delegation to discuss avoiding any “misunderstandings” in Syria.

Russian Federation is ready to share specific reconnaissance data about Islamic State (IS) positions and activities with the anti-IS coalition, he added.

Despite the presence of Russian air and ground forces in Syria, Graham insisted Obama must form his own coalition to counter Russia.

Russian Federation says its planes are only targeting the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, but Western-backed, anti-Assad rebels have also been targeted.

Syria Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Russian airstrikes in Syria followed months of preparations, according to the official Syrian news agency SANA on Monday. USA officials have seen the effort primarily as a move to bolster al-Assad, a close ally – a goal Russian President Vladimir Putin does not deny.

The strikes destroyed 20 vehicles and three weapons depots in ISIL-held Palmyra, state television said, quoting a military source.

Indeed, if one analyzes the relations between Russian Federation and Turkey, one can say that the deterioration of the relationship is primarily not in the interests of the two countries.

The unease generated by Moscow’s actions in Syria is “going to cause us to strengthen our posture with respect to Russian Federation”, Carter said.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said a response to the Pentagon’s request for talks came through the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and reached U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter while he was flying from Moron Air Base in Spain to Sigonella, Italy.

“If the plan is to take whatever military steps necessary to maintain Assad in power, then it’s Afghanistan redux” for Russian Federation, says Philip Gordon, who until recently was President Obama’s special adviser on Mideast affairs.

The Iraqis feel that the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State has become too focused on Syria and has not made enough progress on the ground in Iraq, a senior Iraqi diplomat, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity, told Air Force Times on Monday.

‘The Turkish Armed Forces are clearly instructed. It also put the city’s Roman-era ruins under the militants’ control.

Meanwhile, Russian jets carried out air strikes on 12 Islamic State sites in Syria on Tuesday, as Moscow expanded its week-old bombing campaign in the war-torn country.

“It was the heaviest Russian attack on Palmyra”, Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the Palmyra strikes killed at least 15 IS fighters and injured dozens more.