'US apologized to Assad' for killing troops: Russian FM

MOSCOW

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday Washington apologized to Bashar al-Assad following the U.S.-led coalition’s airstrike on Syrian regime's military base on Sept. 17 that left dozens of soldiers dead.

According to a Russian state-funded television Russia Today, Lavrov confirmed Washington offered its apologies to Assad via Russia.

The Russian foreign minister added it was hard to believe the intelligence of U.S.-led coalition forces had forgotten locations in Deir ez-Zour, eastern Syria, where an airstrike left 62 Syrian regime soldiers dead.

It is “very hard to believe that reconnaissance officers of the U.S.-founded coalition that is fighting Islamic State [Daesh] on the whole Syrian territory could forget about who is located where,” he said, according to Russia Today.

Russian Ministry of Defense said U.S.-led coalition forces had used two F-16s and two A-10 fighter jets to carry out the attack on Syrian regime forces.