Agence france-presse
Moscow, August 16: Russian warplanes took off Tuesday from a base in Iran to target Islamic State fighters and other militants in Syria, Russia’s Defence Ministry said, widening Moscow’s bombing campaign in Syria in a major development in the country’s civil war.
The long-range bombers took off from near the Iranian city of Hamedan, around 280 kilometers (175 miles) southwest of the Iranian capital, and struck targets in three provinces in northern and eastern Syria. Meanwhile, Syrian opposition activists said a wave of air-strikes on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 15 civilians and wounded many others Tuesday, but it was not clear whether the strikes were carried out by the Russian or Syrian government’s air force.
It is virtually unheard of in Iran’s recent history to allow a foreign power to use one of its bases to stage attacks. Russia has also never used the territory of another country in the Middle East for its operations inside Syria, where it has been carrying out an aerial campaign in support of President Bashar Assad’s government for nearly a year. The announcement suggests cooperation at the highest levels between Moscow and Tehran, both key allies of the embattled president.
It comes a day after Russia’s defense minister said Moscow and Washington are edging closer to an agreement on Syria that would help defuse the situation in the besieged northern city of Aleppo. Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu said the agreement would “allow us to find common ground and start fighting together for bringing peace to that territory,” adding that Russian representatives are “in a very active stage of talks with our American colleagues.”
A US official said, however, that discussions with the Russians are still ongoing and no agreement is close. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media about the ongoing talks. Russia and the United States have been discussing greater coordination for striking extremists in Syria, but they have been unable to reach agreement on which militant groups could be targeted. Russia has criticized what it describes as US reluctance to persuade the Syrian opposition groups it supports to withdraw from areas controlled by al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.
In Tehran, the state-run IRNA news agency quoted Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, as saying that Tehran and Moscow have exchanged “capacity and possibilities” in the fight against the Islamic State group. “With constructive and extended cooperation between Iran, Russia and Syria and the resistance front (Hezbollah), the situation has become very tough for terrorists and the trend will continue until the complete destruction of them,” Shamkhani said.