Syria extends major offensive to retake territory in west

 Syria extends major offensive to retake territory in west
# 08 October 2015 23:48 (UTC +04:00)

The assault focused on western areas where rebel advances earlier this year had threatened the coastal region vital to President Bashar al-Assad's support base.

The Russian defense ministry said it fired missiles from ships in the Caspian Sea for a second day, hitting weapons factories, arms dumps, command centers and training camps. Its air force hit what it described as 27 Islamic State targets in the provinces of Homs, Hama and Raqqa, it said.

Since Russia began air strikes last week it has described all its targets as belonging to the Islamic State group, although most have been in areas controlled by other rebel movements where Islamic State has little or no presence.

U.S. officials said they believed four Russian cruise missiles bound for Syria had crashed en route in Iran. Russia's Defence Ministry declined to comment.

Ground forces loyal to the Syrian government targeted insurgents in the Ghab Plain area in the west of the country, with heavy barrages of surface-to-surface missiles as Russian warplanes bombed from above, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a rebel fighting there.

"There is an attempt by the regime to advance but the situation is under our control," said a fighter in the area from the Ajnad al-Sham insurgent group who uses the name Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi.

Speaking by internet link, he told Reuters Russian jets had been bombing since dawn, their most ferocious attack on the area so far. He said rebels had managed to destroy a number of Syrian tanks in a counter attack on Wednesday.

"God willing we will repeat the massacre of the north Hama countryside as happened yesterday," he said, referring to that counter attack. "We have faced more violent attacks than this in the past."

The Observatory said rebels had shot down a helicopter in Hama province in western Syria. It was unclear if it was Syrian or Russian.


Assad's armed forces "have launched wide-ranging attacks to deal with the terrorist groups, and to liberate the areas which had suffered from the terrorist rule and crimes," Syria's army Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Ali Abdullah Ayoub, was quoted as saying by state media.Syria said it had set in train a major military operation to regain the upper hand on the battlefield. Its civil war began more than four years ago and has now killed 250,000 people, sent millions into exile as refugees and drawn in world and regional powers.

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THE OPERATION IS BEING PERFORMED