US, Russian Federation hold talks on safe flight operations over Syria

Syiah-dominated Iran is Assad’s strongest regional ally and it has sent Guards as military advisers to help him against Sunni Muslim rebels seeking his overthrow.

AFP quotes the Russian military as claiming that the air strikes had destroyed 53 positions used by the “terrorists”, as well as a command post, four training camps and seven ammunition depots.

Washington and its European and Middle Eastern allies say the Syrian president should step down in any peace deal, while Moscow says his government should be the centrepiece of worldwide efforts to fight extremism. “Even the maps that are released from the Russians themselves show where they’re concentrating their airstrikes”, Francona said.

Russian strikes have focused on areas in Hama province and neighboring Idlib where insurgents have advanced in recent months.

He said the Russian airstrikes haven’t really hurt ISIS much. “But that’s to put a fig leaf on this”.

Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Saudi Arabia, which along with other Arab states has joined a U.S.-led coalition bombing Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, was still demanding Assad’s removal from power.

“Any professional knows that during these operations we always fix the target before and after impact”.

“It is not about the foreign policy”. And this is a real threat, we can not afford to underestimate it, ‘ he told a meeting of local security officials on the impact of the Syria operation. Russian Federation is a self-sufficient country.

Three senior officials in the region say Soleimani’s July trip was preceded by high-level Russian-Iranian contacts that produced political agreement on the need to pump in new support for Assad as his losses accelerated. The USA had been waiting since then for a response.

The two countries had “deconfliction” talks the next day via videoconference, aimed at ensuring Russian warplanes didn’t cross paths with drones and US-led coalition jets.

Russian Federation said on October 10 that its military forces in Syria carried out 64 combat sorties against 55 targets over the previous 24 hours.

“He repeated his offer to cooperate with the United States in carrying out attacks in Syria, Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s refused”.

“The Americans have handed us a document, which we are working on”.

Other US officials interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

He also dismissed the notion that Russian Federation is trying to wipe out Syrian dissidents who oppose al-Assad. Both sides shared the objective of preventing a “terrorist caliphate” from taking root in Syria, he said.

There is disagreement among Russia’s Islamists about whether they should target civilians, and in any case their capacity to stage attacks has waned in the past few years, said Simon Saradzhyan, a fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center.