Putin Leads the World in War on ISIS
Russia’s air campaign in Syria, where a U.S.-led air coalition and fighters on the ground from regional states are already entangled in a four-year-old civil war, has drawn strong criticism from the United States and its allies.
President Barack Obama has continued to hide from the real issue of ISIS.
Russia said on Saturday it will step up air strikes in Syria, escalating a military intervention which Moscow says is weakening Islamic State militants but which Western powers say aims to support President Bashar al-Assad.
A senior Russian military officer said Russian jets based in western Syria had carried out more than 60 sorties in 72 hours across Syria. “We will not only continue strikes… We will also increase their intensity,” said Andrei Kartapolov from the Russian army General Staff.
“The strikes were carried out around the clock from the Hmeymim air base along the whole depth of the territory of Syria,” Kartapolov said, referring to an airport near Syria’s Mediterranean coast where Russian jets are based. “Over three days we were able to undermine the terrorists’ infrastructure and significantly reduce their military potential.”
Maarat al-Numaan, in Syria’s northern province of Idlib, is not known as an Islamic State base. Most fighters in the area are from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham and other insurgent groups, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
A Syrian military source, quoted by state media, said Russian and Syrian planes destroyed a command center in Latamneh, in Hama province, where Western-backed rebels operate. They also hit a training camp and weapons depot in Maarat al-Numaan, and weapons and ammunitions stores in Jisr al-Shughour.
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