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Russian Warplanes Hit Record 118 Syria Targets in 24 Hours
 [AnNahar] Russian warplanes have struck 118 "terrorist" targets in Syria over the past 24 hours, its highest daily total yet, the defense ministry said Wednesday, attributing the rise to fresh intelligence.
It was the highest one-day tally since the Kremlin began its bombing campaign on September 30. The previous record was set on Monday when Moscow said it had struck 94 "terrorist" targets in Syria. The defense ministry released no information on Tuesday. "The number of sorties has gone up," the ministry said in a statement. "This is due to an increase in intelligence data," he said, adding that targets had been "confirmed via various channels." The strikes destroyed a command post near the town of Talbisseh in Homs province that belonged to al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front, said the ministry. Among the other targets was a base in Aleppo province used to control a "terrorist" weapon supply route which was "destroyed," along with the vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft systems that were protecting it, it said. In Sahl al-Ghab valley, which lies between the provinces of Hama and Idlib, the warplanes hit a "camouflaged supply base", causing an kaboom that also destroyed trucks parked some 500 meters away. Russian forces also hit a command and communications post of Jaish al-Islam  ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...(Army of Islam) group near Mesraba, a town north-east of Damascus, and "completely destroyed" a command post in Salma, Latakia, after discovering it with unmanned aerial vehicles. Posted by: trailing wife 2015-10-29 |
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