Russia uses Iran to launch strikes again, rejects US censure

Russia used an Iranian air base to launch airstrikes in Syria for a second day running on Wednesday, rejecting US suggestions its co-operation with Tehran might violate a UN resolution.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that SU-34 fighter bombers flying from Iran’s Hamadan air base had struck Daesh targets in Syria’s Deir El-Zor province, destroying two command posts and killing more than 150 combatants.
Moscow first used Iran as a base from which to launch airstrikes in Syria on Tuesday, deepening its involvement in the five-year-old Syrian civil war and angering the US.
Washington called the move “unfortunate” and said on Tuesday it was looking into whether Russia’s move had violated UN Security Council resolution 2231, which prohibits the supply, sale and transfer of combat aircraft to Iran.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday there were no grounds to suggest Russia had violated the resolution, saying it was not supplying Iran with aircraft.
“These aircraft are being used by Russia’s air force with Iran’s agreement as a part of an anti-terrorist operation at the request of Syria’s leadership,” Lavrov told a Moscow news conference, after holding talks with Murray McCully, New Zealand’s foreign minister.
Russia’s use of the Iranian air base comes amid intense fighting for the Syrian city of Aleppo, where rebels are battling Syrian government forces backed by the Russian military, and as Moscow and Washington are working toward a deal on Syria that could see them cooperate more closely.
Syrian state media claimed that rebel shelling in Aleppo killed 12 people including a child on Wednesday.
State television announced “12 martyrs including a child and several wounded after terrorists shelled the Salaheddin” district in the city’s regime-controlled west.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 10 civilians including a child had been killed in the rebel shelling.
Since mid-2012, Aleppo has been roughly split between opposition control in the east and government forces in the west.

Source: Arab News