Russian air strikes in Syria to last 3-4 months

Russian air strikes in Syria will last for three to four months and will intensify, a senior Russian lawmaker said Friday as President Vladimir Putin was due in Paris for talks.

"There is always a risk of getting bogged down but in Moscow they're talking about three to four months of operations," Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee of Russia's lower house of parliament, told France's Europe 1 radio.

Pushkov said more than 2,500 air strikes by the US-led coalition in Syria had failed to inflict significant damage on the jihadist Islamic State group, but Russia's campaign would be more intensive to achieve results.

"I think it's the intensity that is important. The US-led coalition has pretended to bomb Daesh (another name for Islamic State) for a year, without results.

"If you do it in a more efficient way, I think you'll see results," he said.

Putin is due to hold talks with President Francois Hollande in the French capital on Syria before attending a summit also involving the leaders of Ukraine and Germany aimed at consolidating the fragile peace in Ukraine.

Citing witnesses a monitoring group said Friday two children were among at least seven civilians killed in air strikes carried out by Russian warplanes in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib.

Four civilians, including a child and a woman, were killed in the district of Jabal al-Zawiya, in an area under the control of Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and other Islamist rebel groups, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Three other civilians, including a girl and a woman, were killed in bombing by these planes of the village of Habeet," in the same province that borders Turkey, said the group, which relies on a network of sources on the ground for its information.
Source: AFP