Russia has announced that in her airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, at least 200 terrorists were killed. The airstrikes were conducted on an ISIS training camp in Palmyra and come after Islamic State claimed to have killed two Russian soldiers who attempted to land in a helicopter in Syria’s Homs province.
The attack also destroyed two hideouts, an ammunition depot, at 24 pickup trucks mounted with large-caliber machine guns, and a bomb-making facility, and that intelligence revealed that the contingent killed was planning attacks ahead of presidential polls next month, which will be the second since the civil war in Syria began.
Despite the groups no longer controlling significant territory two years after losing a self-proclaimed caliphate, recently the militants are accelerating the tempo of their attacks, leaving President Bashar al-Assad to battle an insurgency in parts of the country he nominally rules.
