Ahmet Gürhan Kartal
03 October 2015•Update: 04 October 2015
LONDON
Russia's military involvement in Syria is helping to support the country's "butcher" president, Bashar al-Assad, British Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
Cameron's strong remarks came as Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had hit more targets in Syria over the past 24 hours.
The British PM -- speaking from his Oxfordshire constituency ahead of the ruling Conservative Party's conference in Manchester -- said Russia's military intervention was "really making the situation worse".
Cameron said Russian forces did not make any distinction between Daesh militants and those fighting the Syrian regime's forces.
"It's absolutely clear that Russia is not discriminating between ISIL [Daesh] and the legitimate Syrian opposition groups and, as a result, they are actually backing the butcher Assad and helping him," he said.
However, Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that Su-34 and Su-24M aircraft had performed over 20 sorties “attacking nine objects of ISIS [Daesh] terrorists".
According to the ministry, Russian planes hit objects near Jisr al-Shughur and Maarrat Al-Nu'man near the city of Idlib as well as destroying "an ISIS-hardened command center near Raqqah”.
‘Unguided’ attacks
However, the U.K.’s defense chief claimed earlier on Saturday that only one in 20 Russia airstrikes have targeted Daesh forces.
Secretary of State for Defense Michael Fallon told The Sun newspaper that “unguided” bombing raids were not hitting the extremist rebel group.
Fallon said: "We're analyzing where the strikes are going every morning. The vast majority are not against IS [Daesh] at all."
"Our evidence indicates they are dropping unguided munitions in civilian areas, killing civilians, and they are dropping them against the Free Syrian forces fighting Assad," he added.
According to one Free Syrian Army commander, Russian airstrikes have killed 51 civilians, including 16 children.
Abdulrahal Sahal, one of the group's commanders, told Anadolu Agency on Saturday: "Russia surely knows the Daesh-deployed areas. However, the areas targeted by Russia were free of any Daesh or al-Qaeda presence.”
Sahal claimed that Russia is in Syria only to back the Assad regime; "Russia intervened in Syria to keep the Assad regime alive," he added.
Saturday's remarks are the strongest U.K. criticism yet of Russia’s intervention in war-torn Syria.
Russia began its airstrikes in Syria last Wednesday.
The U.S. and several of its allies, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, issued a joint statement Thursday expressing concern over the bombing campaign.
