Russia's defence ministry said it had carried out a new round of air strikes in Syria overnight, hitting and destroying Islamic State targets while strictly avoiding populated areas.
Russian aviation group carried out the first precision strikes on targets of the international terrorist organisation Islamic State. The ground attack planes equipped with modern weapons targeted eight sites. These were a weapons and ammunition depot, as well as fuel and lubricants factory, command and communication posts and transport vehicles of the Islamic State fighters.
All targets have been destroyed, said Russian army colonel Igor Klimov, speaking at an air-field with Russian military jets.
Spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry Igor Konashenkov said Russian jets had hit an ammunition depot near Idlib as well as a three-storey Islamic State command centre near Hama.
Overnight four more Islamic State targets have been hit. SU-24M and SU-25 jets carried out eight sorties. They've destroyed the terrorist group's headquarters and ammunition depot near Idlib, and also (Islamic State) fighters' three-story command centre and fortifications near the town of Hama. A direct hit by an aerial bomb has completely destroyed the facility producing explosives and ammunition north of Homs, Konashenkov said.
Video released by the ministry on Thursday claiming to have captured some of the operation showed several explosions hitting targets on the ground.
Islamic State, which is based largely in the north and east of Syria, does not have a substantial presence in Hama or Homs.
While Moscow maintained it had hit Islamic State positions, the areas it struck are mostly held by a rival insurgent alliance, which unlike Islamic State is supported by U.S. allies including Arab states and Turkey.
Hassan Haj Ali, head of the Liwa Suqour al-Jabal rebel group, told Reuters on Thursday one of the targets was his group's base in Idlib province, struck by around 20 missiles in two separate sorties. His fighters had been trained by the CIA in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, part of a programme in Washington says is aimed at supporting groups that oppose both Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
This puts Moscow and Washington on opposing sides in a Middle East conflict for the first time since the Cold War.
The U.S. and Russian militaries will hold talks at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) via video link to seek ways to keep their militaries apart as they wage parallel campaigns of air strikes in Syria, a U.S. defence official said.
Russia's sudden decision to join the war with air strikes on behalf of Assad, as well as the increased military involvement of Iran, could mark a pivotal turning point in a conflict that has drawn in most of the world's military powers.
With the United States leading an alliance waging an air war against Islamic State fighters, the Cold War superpower foes Washington and Moscow are now engaged in combat over the same country for the first time since World War Two.
They say they have the same enemies the Islamic State group of Sunni Muslim militants who have proclaimed a caliphate across eastern Syria and northern Iraq.
But they also have very different friends, and sharply opposing views of how to resolve the 4years-old Syrian civil war, which has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes.
The Russian strikes represent a bold move by President Vladimir Putin to assert influence beyond his own neighbourhood: it is the first time Moscow has ordered its forces into combat outside the frontiers of the former Soviet Union since its disastrous Afghanistan campaign in the 1980s.
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