Russian airstrikes against ISIS over the past week have dramatically turned the tide in the fight against the terrorist organization on its home turf of Syria and Iraq, according to reports coming out of the Middle East over the weekend. The attacks have left ISIS with a starkly reduced number of operational headquarters in those two countries and, according to those reports, bringing “the end of ISIS” within reach.
While the reports from inside Iraq have not been independently confirmed, the Russian Ministry of Defense on Monday issued a report stating that in just the previous two days, Russian air forces struck 472 ISIS targets, flying 141 combat sorties. Many of those strikes were aimed at starving the terrorist group of the fuel needed to carry out its operations.
#SYRIA #FOOTAGE Strategic aircraft with cruise missiles refuelled at night https://t.co/TJbwP08RJr pic.twitter.com/qmrI3L05L2
— ?????????? ?????? (@mod_russia) November 20, 2015
The Russian defense ministry also made public a series of videos showing what it said were Russian air strikes on ISIS targets. The following video shows what the Russian military described as a strike by two air-fired cruise missiles on an ISIS base in the Syria province of Idlib.
In addition to the explosion seen in the early part of the video, which was caused by cruise missiles fired from the Russian aircraft as the pilot apparently conducts a flyover to assess damage, the plane’s cameras clearly capture numerous individuals, presumably panicking ISIS fighters, scrambling to flee the missile strikes on foot and on motorcycles.
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The news reports from inside Iraq say that only 34 ISIS bases remain in that country and in Syria after the aerial pounding by Russia and other countries, including France and the United States.
“At present, ISIL only has 34 bases in Mosul, Raqqa, etc. which were many more in number,” Mohammad Ali al-Hakim, of the Iraq news organization al-Nakhil , was quoted as claiming in a report by the Russian-government-owned Sputnik international news service.
“The end of the ISIL which has been borne by the westerners is close,” al-Hakim stated.
“ISIL” is another name for the terrorist group ISIS. The anti-ISIS group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently , a collective of citizen journalists inside the Syrian city of Raqqa — a city seized by ISIS as the capital of its so-called “caliphate” — also reported airstrikes there on Monday.
#Raqqa 6 Airstrikes by Warplanes targeted a fuel tanks west Huneda town in #Raqqa countryside #Syria #ISIS pic.twitter.com/Ekb5awPO0y — ????? ???? ???? (@Raqqa_SL) November 23, 2015
Earlier, the Raqqa group said that some of the airstrikes used deadly phosphorous bombs, a chemical weapon that inflicts gruesome and agonizing burns on anyone it touches.
#Raqqa there is news that the Airstrikes that targeted #Raqqa today was by Phosphorus weapon #Syria #ISIS #ISIL
— ????? ???? ???? (@Raqqa_SL) November 22, 2015
The chemical is banned for use against populations under international law but is legal for use as a light source in battlefield conditions.
As Russia drastically stepped up its air attacks against ISIS in the aftermath of the November 13 Paris terror attacks, United States officials have cautioned that Russian air strikes have not tried to distinguish between ISIS terrorists and civilians.
According to human rights groups, the Russian airstrikes have actually killed more civilians than actual ISIS fighters.
The rights group Syria Observatory reported last week that Russian air strikes have killed 381 members of ISIS and other Islamic extremist terror groups — but have claimed 403 civilian fatalities, including 97 children.
Those figures have also not been independently confirmed.
The Russian Defense Ministry in its Monday report scoffed at the claims of large-scale civilian deaths as “propaganda” and “fake.”
“In the connection with a large-scale operation on simultaneous destruction of terrorists’ infrastructure all over the territory of Syria, the so-called fake ‘human rights observatories’ and other propaganda organizations were expected to issue another batch of stovepiping in the Western media,” the Russian military agency said.
“The more precise the Russian airstrikes are, the more persistently the Western colleagues are trying to convince the foreign public claiming that not all terrorists are that bad,” the Russian statement continued. “Terrorism is an absolute evil, all forms of which must be fought. The Russian side has objective control data on the results of last week’s air operation.”
Whether the Russian airstrikes have, in reality, left ISIS on what media reports have called “the brink of defeat” remains unclear.
[Photo by Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images]
