Syria

DAMASCUS, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- A total of 62 people have been killed over the past 24 hours as a result of the U.S.-led airstrikes on the country's eastern province of Deir al-Zour, state news agency SANA reported Saturday.

The coalition's airstrikes targeted areas in the village of Souseh in the countryside of the city of Abu Kamal in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour, killing 15 people, including women and children.

The U.S.-led airstrikes also killed 37 others when targeting a mosque in that area.

DAMASCUS, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led coalition has used white phosphorus munitions in an attack on a town in eastern Syria, state news agency SANA reported on Saturday.

The attack, which took place over the past few hours, targeted the town of Hajin in the eastern countryside of the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, said SANA.

The report said the attack left no causalities.

SANA said the attack is the not the first one, as U.S.-led airstrikes used phosphorus ammunition in an attack on Hajin last month.

MOSCOW, October 10./TASS/. Changing the status of the Golan Heights in sidestepping the UN Security Council would come in direct violation of its resolutions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists on Wednesday.

"The status of the Golan Heights is determined by UN Security Council resolutions," he reiterated. "I think that changing the status in bypassing the Security Council would be a direct violation of these resolutions," he added.

MOSCOW, October 2. /TASS/. It will take three months to train Syrian specialists to use Russian S-300 air defense systems, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday at a Russian Security Council meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin.

"We have finished personnel recruitment and have begun to train them," he said.

So far, Russia has supplied Syria with 49 equipment pieces as part of delivery of the S-300 air defense system, Shoigu said.

MOSCOW, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia has delivered to Syria S-300 air defense systems to improve safety of its military personnel deployed in the country, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday.

"We have completed the delivery of S-300 systems. This includes 49 pieces of equipment: lighting locators, basic detection systems, control vehicles and four launchers," Shoigu said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of the Russian Security Council, according to a Kremlin transcript.

30 Sep 2018; DW: A Syrian war monitor has claimed Russian airstrikes in Syria have killed more than 18,000 people over the past three years. But Russia says the figure is actually closer to 85,000.

More than 18,000 people have been killed in Russian air strikes since Moscow started a bombing campaign in Syria exactly three years ago, a monitor said Sunday.

Russia's military intervention in support of the Syrian government on September 30, 2015 changed the course of the war, allowing President Bashar al-Assad's regime to retake large swaths of the country.

MOSCOW, September 24./TASS/. Within two weeks, the Syrian army will get from Russia S-300 air-defense missiles to strengthen its combat capabilities following the downing of a Russian Ilyushin Il-20 aircraft in Syria, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday.

"A modern S-300 air defense missile system will be supplied to the Syrian Armed Forces within two weeks. It is capable of intercepting air assault weapons at a distance of more than 250 kilometers and hit simultaneously several air targets," the minister said.

DAMASCUS, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led coalition air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria has killed thousands of civilians since they entered the course of Syrian war four years ago, a war monitor reported on Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll of civilians is part of a total of 12,000 rebels and ultra-radical militants killed by the U.S.-led strikes.

BEIRUT, September 19. /TASS/. Agreements that the Russian and Turkish Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reached in Sochi over Idlib "allowed preserving Syria’s territorial integrity and averting the West’s aggression," Nidal Sabi, a Lebanese political analyst, told TASS on Wednesday.

Sabi, who is said to be an expert in the Syria crisis, said that "the decision approved in Sochi to set up a demilitarized zone provides a chance to disarm the Ankara-backed illegal armed groups in northwest Syria without any fighting or losses."

DAMASCUS, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The former U.S.-backed Liwa Shuhada al-Qaryatayn rebels will evacuate from southern Syria to positions of the Turkey-backed rebels in northern Syria under a deal with the Russians, a pro-government newspaper reported on Thursday.

Citing opposition activists, the al-Watan newspaper said around 5,000 rebels and their families will evacuate in the coming days their positions near the U.S.-run base in the al-Tanf area toward areas controlled by Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) in Aleppo province.