Russian Air Force wiped out one third of Daeshis in Syria

The Russian Air Force and the Syrian army have wiped out over a third of Daesh terrorists since Moscow began its operations in Syria in September, says a high ranking security official.

“We estimate that at the beginning of our operation, al-Nusra Front and Daesh possessed about 80,000 fighters, of whom 28,000 (35 percent) have already been eliminated. This is [the result of] our actions together with the Syrian Army,” said Russian deputy security chief Evgeny Lukyanov on Tuesday.

He noted that the US-led coalition had killed around 5,000 terrorists over the last two years.  

“There were people predicting that it [Russia’s anti-terrorist operation in Syria] would result in another Afghanistan or something like that. That would never be. There are only limited military plans,” added Lukyanov while speaking at the VII international security summit being held in Grozny, the capital city of the Chechen Republic in southwest Russia.

Since September 30, 2015, Russia has been conducting airstrikes against Daesh and other terrorist groups in Syria at the Syrian government’s request. The US and its allies have also been carrying out airstrikes in Syria purportedly against Daesh positions since September 2014.

The Syrian government says that the US airstrikes usually target the country's infrastructure and have done little to stop the advances of terrorists.

Syria must solve its own issues

While stressing that the main task of Russia’s military operations in Syria is to facilitate political dialogue, Lukyanov noted that Syrians “must solve their issues for themselves.”

“Otherwise this [war] would have no end in sight,” he added.

UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva ended last month without any progress after the delegation of the Saudi-backed opposition walked out, and declared a "new war" against the Syrian government. 

Lukyanov further stressed the importance of reaching a deal through arrangements and compromise as “There are no victors in a civil war, everybody loses.”

He also said that crisis in Syria has reached a turning point that “only those politically motivated could deny that fact or interpret it differently.” He added that the aggressive actions of some parties in Syria show that “they would like very much to wreck the settlement process.”  

The security official also announced that around 100 Syrian settlements have joined an armistice. Daesh and al-Nusra Front are excluded from a “cessation of the hostilities” agreement reached in late February as an attempt for facilitating peace talks. The truce, which is sponsored by the United States and Russia, is still officially in place in many parts of Syria despite surging violence in Aleppo, which has been a flashpoint over the past weeks.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that around 6,000 Nusra Front terrorists are engaged in preparations for a heavy offensive on the northwestern Aleppo province.

“In the Aleppo region, Al-Nusra Front leaders are finishing forming an assault group totaling over 6,000 militants in order to block the government troops in the city with a strike from the east, while in the north they seek to cut off access to the city of Nubl,” said the head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, Lieutenant General Sergey Kuralenko.

Kuralenko noted that the figures and estimates have been confirmed by non-stop fire on Syrian troops in Eastern Ghouta and in Damascus.

“The escalation of the situation in a number of Syrian regions is first of all linked to the goal of the leaders of Al-Nusra Front and factions allied with it to derail the process of reconciliation,” he added. 

According to UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict since March 2011.

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