...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
jihadist group.
"Su-34, Su-24M and Su-25SM planes carried out 64 sorties from the Hmeimim airbase against 63 targets in the provinces of Hama, Latakia, Idlib and Raqa," the defense ministry said in a statement.
The Russian military claimed 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.
Russia said its campaign in the war-torn country was rattling IS fighters, claiming that radio intercepts showed "growing panic" among them.
On Saturday, the defense ministry claimed that fighters were running low on arms, ammunition and fuel, leading them to abandon their combat positions for the country's east and northeast.
In an interview with a state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
broadcaster Sunday, President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...reiterated that Russia was not planning on sending ground troops to Syria.
"We are not planning on doing this, and our Syrian friends know about this," Putin said.
Putin last month received parliamentary approval to launch an air campaign in the war-torn country, but authorities have staunchly denied they would send any ground troops.
Using modern jets and older Soviet aircraft, Russia has bombed command posts and training camps of what it says are radical "terrorists", backing a ground offensive by the forces of Syrian
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Terror of Aleppo ...
Putin said Sunday that the Russian operation's objective was to "stabilize the legitimate authorities and create conditions for finding a political compromise."
Speaking of the weaponry used in the strikes -- including cruise missiles Russia fired from the Caspian Sea at targets more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) away -- Putin dismissed the idea that Russia was in a "arms race" with the West.
"This is not about an arms race," he said. "This is about the fact that modern weapons are improving, changing. In other countries, this is happening even faster than here. This is why we have to keep up."
Putin brushed off criticism by the U.S.-led coalition that the Russian air force was not providing it with sufficient advance notice prior to conducting strikes.
"I want to draw attention to the fact that nobody has ever warned us in the planning and beginning of operations of this kind," Putin said. "But we did."