Comment: It’s somewhat surprising to see this story coming from the AFP. Western media have been avoiding their responsibility of reporting the news of Russian strikes since Moscow’s second day of operations in Syria. People want to know what is going on and have been turning to alternative sources like RT, Sputnik, SOTT and Global Research. The West’s silence on such a major world event has disarmed their capacity, for the first time in the information age, to fully shape public perception. The West didn’t see Putin coming, and their silence is reflective of that. Now they are playing catch-up. It seems that instead of continuing to lose readership, the media is being forced by reality and survival to get back to work.

Russia’s air force hit 86 “terrorist” targets in Syria in the past 24 hours, the defense ministry said Tuesday, in the highest one-day tally since it launched its bombing campaign on September 30.

“In the last 24 hours, Su-34, Su-24M and Su-25SM planes carried out 88 sorties against 86 terrorist infrastructure targets in the provinces of Raqa, Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo,” the defense ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the strikes destroyed a command post outside the town of Anadan, located 16 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of Aleppo, which it said was used by IS fighters to coordinate their movements in the area.

Other strikes in the IS stronghold of Al-Bab, located in the Aleppo region, saw the destruction of a field command center and an ammunition depot.

The Russian air force said it had attacked a convoy transporting fuel and ammunition in the Aleppo region.

Strikes outside the village of Latamneh in Hama province destroyed an underground ammunition bunker, the defense ministry said.

The Russian military has claimed fighters are low on ammunition, fuel and materials, and that they had begun abandoning their combat positions.

“According to radio intercepts of talks between field commanders in the provinces of Hama and Homs, the fighters are experiencing an acute shortage of ammunition for small arms and grenade launchers,” the ministry said.

“Some field commanders have informed their superiors that if they don’t receive ammunition in the near future, they will lead their gangs away from the combat zone.”

Source: AFP