8000 Terrorists Killed in Syria During Past Three Months: Russian Cmdr.

“To support the offensive by units of Syria’s Armed Forces, the Russian aviation every day carries out some 60 sorties…Only over the past three days, Russian pilots have made 163 sorties, destroying 415 targets,” Surovikin said at the Army-2017 international military and technical forum during a roundtable discussion on Russian participation in the war on terror in Syria.
 
“The enemy has lost a total of over 8,000 gunmen and 1,500 pieces of armament, military and other hardware,” he added.
 
“The main routes of supplying gunmen with weapons and ammunition have been blocked. Terrorist organizations have been deprived of financial support from illegal sales of oil products,” Chief of the Main Operations Department of the Russian General Staff Lieutenant General Sergey Rudskoy said, speaking about the role of Russian airstrikes.
 
“Special operations forces play an important role in destroying armed groups. They perform tasks of destroying leaders of terrorists, eliminating critical facilities of the enemy and adjusting strikes of our aviation,” Rudskoy added.
 
For his part, chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Directorate Col. Gen. Igor Korobov affirmed that “the total number of al-Nusra Front terrorists in northwestern Idleb stands at 9,000 people. Currently, terrorists are trying to take control over the whole of its territory by intensifying combat actions against the moderate opposition groups.”
 
Russia has been carrying out an aerial campaign in Syria in coordination with Damascus since September 2015 to further boost the Syrian military’s anti-terror fight.
 
At Damascus’ request, Iran has also been providing military advisory support to the Syrian military in its counterterrorism operations.
 
Russia and Iran are the main international backers of the Syrian government in its battle against foreign-backed terrorists who have been wreaking havoc in the country since March 2011.