IS beheads Russian officer in Syria: SITE
The Russian defence ministry denied any Russian serviceman had been captured and killed by IS in Syria
MOSCOW/DUBAI: IS has issued a video showing the beheading of a man it described as a Russian intelligence officer captured in Syria, the U.S.-based SITE monitoring website reported on Tuesday.
But the Russian defence ministry denied any Russian serviceman had been captured and killed by IS in Syria.
The 12-minute Russian-language video showed the man dressed in a black jump suit kneeling in a desert scene and urging other Russian agents to surrender. The authenticity of the recording and the identity of the man could not immediately be verified, nor was it clear when the killing occurred.
In comments cited by Russian news agencies, the defence ministry said all Russian forces in Syria were accounted for and continuing the ‘struggle against international terrorism’. There was no immediate response from the FSB security service.
Russian forces are backing Syrian President Bashar Al Assad in his war with rebels and extremist militants seeking to oust him.
The video showed scenes of what it described as the aftermath of Russian bombing raids in Syria.
The Russian defence ministry says about 30 Russian servicemen have been killed since the start of the Kremlin’s operation there in September 2015.
Meanwhile, Syrian government warplanes struck rebel outposts near the Jordanian border early on Tuesday, rebels said, bringing the war closer to Syria’s U.S.-allied neighbour to the south.
The air strikes, at around 3am(0000 GMT) were the first near that part of the border, a Jordanian official said. They came hours after Syria’s foreign minister warned Jordan against sending troops into his country.
Western-backed rebel groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA)’s socalled Southern Front have been active recently in the desert area near the borders with Jordan and Iraq, fighting IS.
“The Syrian regime’s jets conducted four strikes against us,” said Tlas Al Salameh, the commander of Osoud Al Sharqiya, a Western-backed FSA faction which is the largest group operating in the Syrian Desert border- ing Jordan. Salameh said one air strike hit a border area where the rebel group shelters families of its fighters, others hit a rebel outpost 8km (5 miles) from the Rukban camp where more than 80,000 refugees are stranded.
Salameh, whose group was hit by Russian bombers last year in an attack that angered the Pentagon and Jordan, said there were no casualties from Tuesday’s raids. Salameh said the rebels had retaliated by firing rockets at Khalhala military airport, northeast of the government-held city of Sweida.
The Syrian military could not immediately be reached for comment.
The FSA groups financed and equipped by a Western and Arab operations room in Amman have been given more support in recent weeks in the campaign to drive out IS from the area, Western intelligence sources say.
The U.S. has expanded the rebels’ Tanf base, further east along the border, which rebels and Western intelligence sources expect will be used as a launchpad for any assault on the IS stronghold of Bukamal on the SyrianIraqi border.
The rebels have succeeded in recent weeks in routing IS from swathes of territory in the area, including former stronghold Bir Qassab.
The militants are believed to have regrouped further northeast in the direction of Deir Al Zor, according to Western and Jordanian intelligence sources.
The Syrian army has also in the last week stepped up a campaign to seize areas held by IS in the Syrian Desert in a race with the FSA to grab territory the militants have retreated from.
Salameh said heavy fighting with the Syrian army was taking place in the Sabaa Biyar area where he said the army was trying to capture territory on the Damascus-Baghdad route that is mostly in the hands of IS.