(Wall Street Journal) Russian warplanes continued airstrikes overnight in Syria, as officials Thursday dismissed Western assertions that Moscow wasn’t targeting Islamic State in Syria but was aiming at other opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that Su-24 and Su-25 jets carried out attacks on four different Islamic State positions, including a fortified command post near Hama and an ammunition warehouse in Idlib. According to the statement, a Russian bomb scored a “direct hit” on a bomb-making facility north of Homs. […]
The Russian government often depicts groups opposed to the Syrian regime as terrorists, according to Pavel Baev, research director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, and it conflates Islamic State with other Islamist factions and opposition groups. “As far as strikes against Islamic State are concerned, Russian planes can hardly spot the difference,” Mr. Baev said. […]
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