Summary
Russia appears to have carried out strikes in southern Syria's Daraa province for the first time in an apparent expansion of its aerial campaign, activists said Thursday.
The Britain-based group had no immediate details on casualties or damage in the strikes.
There have been clashes there between opposition and regime forces, but the province has not seen the kind of large-scale ground operation launched by government forces in coordination with Russian strikes elsewhere in the country since Moscow's air campaign began on Sept. 30 .
On Thursday morning, the Observatory said, Russian warplanes renewed strikes elsewhere in Syria, including in the central province of Homs and the northwestern province of Idlib.
Washington has announced a shake-up of its support to the rebels battling the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, ending a program to train fighters outside Syria and instead providing weapons to groups under U.S.-vetted commanders.
The alliance includes the Kurdish YPG militia and a number of Syrian Arab rebel groups such as the Raqqa Revolutionaries Front, which consists mainly of Arab tribal insurgents drawn from the area.
Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday the U.S. military would intensify air strikes and might carry out more ground attacks against ISIS.
He said the United States was now supporting Syrian Arab forces already inside the country fighting IS rather than trying to train completely new moderate Syrian fighters outside the country, an effort that cost millions of dollars and produced few trained troops.
...