US express concern at Russia’s military campaign

Lavrov also slammed criticism of Russia’s military strikes in Syria, remarking that the British and French had said they targeted areas where “people were contemplating bad things on our territory … no proof, no nothing”.

Syrian opposition says attacks targeted them, not Islamic State as Moscow claims.

Assad is the Kremlin’s key ally in the Middle East and Russian Federation maintains a naval facility in the country.

“These organizations are well known and the targets are chosen in coordination with the armed forces of Syria,” he said Thursday, without elaborating.

Commenting on the raids, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would be open to having “standing channels of communication” with the US-led coalition, which has been attacking purported positions of Takfiri Daesh terrorists in Syria and Iraq for more than a year now.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the crisis on the sidelines of the General Assembly on Monday and agreed to start talks to avert military clashes by parallel air campaigns. Carter said the strikes appeared to be in locations “where ISIL in fact are not present”, using an alternative reference to the IS.

The areas targeted by Russian Federation were free of any ISIL or al-Qaeda presence, the group’s chief, Khaled Khoja, said in New York on Wednesday.

Pavel Baev, research director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said the Russian government often depicts groups opposed to the regime of Mr Assad as terrorists, and conflates Islamic State with other Islamist factions and opposition groups.

Experts have said that Russia’s prime concern is propping up the Assad regime against nationalist rebels and maintaining its influence in the region rather than stomping out extremists.

Russia’s Kommersant daily on Thursday quoted a military source as saying that the Russian deployment includes Su-24M and Su-34 bombers, Su-30 fighter jets and Mi-24 combat helicopters.

“We indeed are interested in cooperation with the coalition”, Lavrov said. Putin said the only way to fight “terrorists” in Syria was to act pre-emptively.

On Wednesday, Russian Federation indeed began carrying out airstrikes in Syria, ostensibly to fight ISIS.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Paris would only support the proposal if three conditions were met. “Fighting Isil without pursuing a parallel political transition only risks escalating the civil war in Syria – and with it, the very extremism and instability that Moscow claims to be concerned about and aspire to fighting”.