Russia: 380 ISIL Targets Hit in Syria since Start of Bombing

Friday, 16 October 2015

Russia: 380 ISIL Targets Hit in Syria since Start of Bombing

Local Editor

Russia has hit more than 380 targets of the ISIL Takfiri group since launching its bombing campaign in Syria on September 30, a senior military official said on Friday.

"Since the start of the operation we conducted more than 600 sorties and bombed more than 380 IS targets," Colonel General Andrei Kartapolov, a senior Russian General Staff official, told Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Russia aircraft

Under the request of the Syrian government, Russia launched a bombing campaign in Syria late last month in support of the Syrian army.

Kartapolov slammed the US-led coalition, saying the US had not responded to Russia's invitation to cooperate in the fight against ISIL (so-called Islaic State in Iraq and Levant).

"They consider it humiliating to admit that they cannot fulfil a task they had set out for themselves one year ago without Russia," Kartapolov said, adding that the coalition's year-long bombing campaign was "window-dressing."

"They are in fact unlikely to have the necessary amount of information about ISIL targets, which the results of their strikes reflects," he said.

Kartapolov also accused the coalition of bombing infrastructure essential to a ground operation by the Syrian army.

"It [coalition bombing] does not complicate the activities of ISIL as much as that of the government forces of President Assad," he said.