Russia told to stick to ISIL targets in Syria bombings

• With Russian warplanes bombing Syria for a third day, French President François Hollande told President Vladimir Putin on Friday Moscow’s airstrikes must be confined to attacking Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant militants, not other rebels opposing the Damascus government.

Hollande used a meeting on Ukraine to address Western concerns Russia’s airstrikes would serve to strengthen Syrian President Bashar Assad by targeting rebels — perhaps including some aligned with the U.S. — rather than hitting ISIL fighters as it has promised.

Allies in a U.S.-led coalition that is conducting its own air campaign in Syria called on Russia to cease attacks on the Syrian opposition and to focus on fighting ISIL.

A joint statement by France, Turkey, the U.S. Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Britain expressed concern Russia’s actions will “only fuel more extremism and radicalization.”

The Russian Defence Ministry released images show- ing its jets hit an ISIL-held area near its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria-Thursday. It said there were 14 new missions Friday, including targets in Idlib and Hama provinces.

Hollande said he told Putin only one of Russia’s strikes in three days hit at ISIL. The other strikes were on areas controlled by the opposition.

“Russia has always been involved in Syria. Since the beginning, Russia has supported the regime of Bashar Assad and furnished him weapons, even if it goes further now,” Hollande told reporters. “But what I told Mr. Putin is that the strikes must concern Daesh, and only Daesh” (the term some Europeans use to refer to the jihadists).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also attended the meeting with Putin, added the leaders “said very clearly that Daesh was the enemy that we needed to fight.”

“We also said that we needed a political solution for Syria that should take into consideration the opposition’s interests and that opposition has always had our support,” she added.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said Russia’s military campaign fails to distinguish between terrorist groups and moderate rebel forces with a legitimate interest in a negotiated end to the civil war.

He added he hoped Putin would come to realize allying with Iran to try to keep Assad in power “is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire, and it won’t work. And they will be there for a while if they don’t take a different course.”