More than 60 Syrian government soldiers were killed and dozens of others injured Saturday in U.S.-led coalition air strikes on an air base in the east of the war-torn country, the Russian army said.
“Warplanes from the international anti-jihadist coalition carried out four air strikes today against Syrian forces surrounded by the Islamic State group in the Deir Ezzor air base,” the Army said in a statement.
“Sixty-two Syrian soldiers were killed and a hundred others were injured in these strikes.”
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin had accused Syrian rebels of using a fragile ceasefire to regroup, as diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Washington simmered over a lack of humanitarian aid access.
Fresh shelling and clashes were reported overnight in some areas of the war-torn country, but the U.S.-Russia brokered truce which took effect on Monday appeared to be largely holding.
In New York, the UN Security Council cancelled an urgent meeting that had been called to discuss whether to endorse the ceasefire, billed as the “last chance” to end the five-year war that has killed 3,00,000 people. The closed-door consultations were scrapped after Moscow and Washington failed to agree over disclosing details of the ceasefire to the council. Mr. Putin, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, said he remained “positive” about the truce but lashed out at rebels.
“We see attempts to regroup among these terrorists, to switch one label for another, one name for another and keep their military capacity,” he said in televised remarks while on a trip to Kyrgyzstan. Moscow said on Friday that it was ready to prolong the truce by 72 hours, but there has been no formal announcement of an extension. — AFP
