DAMASCUS, Syria — Clashes intensified Thursday between Syrian troops and insurgents in central and northwestern Syria, part of what a top general called a “wide-ranging” offensive aided by Russian airstrikes and apparently aimed at clearing positions near government strongholds on the coast.
U.S. defense officials said as many as four of the 26 long-range cruise missiles that Russia said Wednesday it fired at Syria landed instead in Iran, but it was unclear if they caused any significant damage. Russia said all of its missiles fired from warships hit their targets.
Russia’s involvement in Syria, which began with airstrikes Sept. 30 and escalated Wednesday with cruise missiles, “raises serious concerns,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said after a meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers in Brussels.
Russia says its air campaign in Syria is aimed against militants of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda-linked groups, but the West accuses it of intervening to support President Bashar Assad against even moderate rebels in the civil war.
The Syrian government’s multipronged offensive began Wednesday, and state-run media said it seized several villages in central Syria, with fighting continuing Thursday. The government media and activists reported heavy fighting in Sahl al-Ghab, a vital plain bordering Assad’s stronghold of Latakia on the Mediterranean.
The plain also lies between Hama and Idlib, the northwestern provinces seized from government troops in September. Insurgents have been advancing there since summer, threatening the coastal region where Assad’s family and the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, are concentrated.
The Islamic State has strongholds in the provinces of Raqqa and Aleppo, while Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front, has a strong presence in Idlib.
Gen. Ali Ayoub, the Syrian army’s chief of staff, said Russia’s airstrikes had weakened the Islamic State fighters and other insurgents so that his troops could keep up the initiative.
Russia said its warplanes flew 22 sorties and carried out 11 airstrikes on Islamic State training facilities in Hama and Raqqa provinces.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said its aircraft destroyed positions in Hama.
