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 The assault focused on western areas where rebel advances earlier
this year had threatened the coastal region vital to President
Bashar al-Assad's support base.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it fired missiles from ships in
the Caspian Sea for a second day and had hit weapons factories, arms
dumps, command centers and training camps.
U.S. officials said they believed four Russian cruise missiles bound
for Syria had crashed en route in Iran. Russia's Defence Ministry
insisted the missiles had reached their targets in Syria.
The White House declined to comment and State Department spokesman
John Kirby said he could not confirm the missiles had crashed, while
adding that the report pointed towards the need for procedures to
prevent clashes with U.S. planes targeting Islamic State militants
in Syria.
Since Russia began air strikes last week it has described all its
targets as belonging to the Islamic State group, although most have
been in areas controlled by other rebel movements where Islamic
State has little or no presence.
On Thursday, Moscow said its air force hit 27 Islamic State targets
in the provinces of Homs, Hama and Raqqa, while Kirby said Secretary
of State John Kerry had expressed his concern to Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov by telephone that most of the targets hit so
far were not related to Islamic State.
On the ground, forces loyal to the Syrian government targeted
insurgents in the Ghab Plain area in the west of the country, with
heavy barrages of surface-to-surface missiles as Russian warplanes
bombed from above, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights and a rebel there.
"There is an attempt by the regime to advance but the situation is
under our control," said a fighter in the area from the Ajnad
al-Sham insurgent group who uses the name Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi.
Speaking by Internet link, he told Reuters Russian jets had been
bombing since dawn, their most ferocious attack on the area so far.
He said rebels had managed to destroy a number of Syrian tanks in a
counter attack on Wednesday.
"God willing we will repeat the massacre of the north Hama
countryside as happened yesterday," he said, referring to that
counter attack. "We have faced more violent attacks than this in the
past."
The Observatory said rebels had shot down a helicopter in Hama
province in western Syria. It was unclear if it was Syrian or
Russian.
Syria said it had set in train a major military operation to regain
the upper hand on the battlefield. Its civil war began more than
four years ago and has now killed 250,000 people, sent millions into
exile as refugees and drawn in world and regional powers. Assad's armed forces "have launched wide-ranging attacks to deal
with the terrorist groups, and to liberate the areas which had
suffered from the terrorist rule and crimes", Syria's army Chief of
Staff, Lieutenant General Ali Abdullah Ayoub, was quoted as saying
by state media.
NEW FIGHTING UNITS
Ayoub did not say which areas were being targeted. He said new
fighting units, including one called the Fourth Assault Corps, had
been set up to wage the campaign and the army now held the military
initiative.
Sources in the region say Iran has sent hundreds of troops to back
Syrian forces in a ground campaign coordinated with Russia's air
assault. Assad's government also relies on support from Hezbollah,
the Shi'ite militia from neighboring Lebanon.
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The Observatory's head, Rami Abdulrahman, said an assault launched
by the army and its foreign allies on Wednesday in nearby areas of
Hama province had so far failed to make significant gains, however.
"At least 13 regime forces were killed ... The clashes also killed
11 (rebel) fighters," he said in a statement, and the numbers were
expected to rise as more casualties were confirmed.
Around 15 army tanks and armored vehicles had been destroyed or
immobilized by rebel missile strikes, Abdulrahman said.
The operation that began on Wednesday in Hama appears to be the
first major assault coordinated between Syrian troops and militia on
the ground with Russian warplanes and naval ships.
Hama province's Ghab Plain lies next to a mountain range that forms
the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect.
Recapturing it from the alliance of rebel groups which includes al
Qaeda's Nusra Front and which thrust into the area in late July,
would help secure Assad's coastal heartlands and could provide a
platform to drive rebels back from other areas.
ANGER OVER AIR SPACE
The United States has been leading a separate air campaign against
Islamic State targets for a year, and the arrival of Russian war
planes last week means the Cold War superpower foes are now flying
combat missions in the same air space for the first time since World
War Two.
Washington and its allies want Assad to leave power and accuse
Moscow of using a campaign against Islamic State as a pretext to
target Assad's other enemies, many of which receive help from
countries that oppose him. Russia, allied to Damascus since the Cold
War, says Assad's government should be part of an international
campaign against extremists.
Neighboring Turkey, a NATO member, has been angered by violations of
its air space by Russian warplanes and the Western alliance said it
was prepared to send troops to Turkey to defend it.
"NATO is ready and able to defend all allies, including Turkey
against any threats," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told
reporters as he arrived for a meeting in Brussels of the alliance's
defense ministers.
At the meeting, Turkey appealed to its NATO allies to shore up
missile defenses.
(Writing by Giles Elgood and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Peter
Graff and Alison Williams)
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