Russian airstrikes destroy Islamic State militant targets
Dramatic footage has emerged of Russian airstrikes destroying Syria as residents below capture the lives they live amid the raging civil war.
Sounds of Russian air force planes can be heard screeching across the sky as bombs are dropped on the town.
The resident filming the explosions runs behind a building as one near him comes crashing to the ground billowing in a cloud of smoke and rubble.
Sounds of Russian air force planes can be heard screeching across the sky as bombs are dropped on the town. Photo: LiveLeak
The presumed Syrian man can be heard commenting on what is happening around him as more explosions can be heard nearby.
Douma is located about 10 kilometres north-east of the centre of Damascus.
Liveleak claims the video occurred on the 4th October 2015.
A woman walks near damaged buildings in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria. Photo: REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh
The Russian air force began striking Syria on Wednesday and over the past 24 hours, it has carried out 20 flights targeting 10 ISIS positions, the Russian Defense Ministry announced in a statement.
A classic asymmetric warefare
Russia is engaged in "classic asymmetric warfare" in Syria by using its military clout to prop up the Syrian President while saying it is attacking Islamic State militants, Britain's foreign minister said.
The dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in the civil war has been criticised by the West as an attempt to prop up President Bashar al-Assad, rather than its purported aim of attacking Islamic State.
Since the Russian air force began striking Syria it has carried out 20 flights targeting 10 ISIS positions. Photo: Bassam Khabieh
"It looks like a classic bit of Russian asymmetric warfare - you have a strong propaganda message that says you're doing one thing while in fact you are doing something completely different and when challenged you just flatly deny it," Philip Hammond told Reuters in an interview in Manchester.
Assad end game?
Hammond said the key to ending the suffering caused by the four-year civil war was a managed transition to peace - even if it meant Assad retained power temporarily.
"If the price for doing that is that we have to accept that Assad will remain as titular head of state for a period of time, do I really care if that's three days, three weeks, three months or even longer? I don't think I do," he said.
Russia hits IS 'capital', rebel-held towns in Syria. Photo: AFP
But Hammond said that for such a transition, Assad should make a pledge not to run in any future election and that he would give up control over Syria's security apparatus.
He added that there was no agreement with Moscow and Tehran on such a transition.
"The key is that there must be a transition – at the moment there is no agreement with the Russians and the Iranians even that there should be a transition," he said.
Hammond also said Russia represented a threat to the international system upon which Britain's security depended, saying it had shown that it did not respect diplomatic norms.
He pointed to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region last year as an example of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin's approach to international law.
But, he said that Moscow still had an important role to play in the Middle East and that Britain could not afford to ignore Russia's role in negotiating peace in Syria.
A frame grab taken from footage released by Russia's Defence Ministry shows smoke rising after airstrikes carried out by their air force on what Russia says was a bomb factory in Maarat al-Numan. Photo: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
"It would not be in our own interests to say that we will not talk to the Russians about the situation in Syria because we object so strongly to what they are doing in Ukraine," he said.
"We have to compartmentalise these disputes," calling for Russia to re-engage with the international system.
"We just need a Russia that accepts there are rules in the system, and you can't throw your toys out of the pram and resort to military force every time you don't get your way," he said.
