BEIRUT — Islamic State militants captured a string of villages near Aleppo on Friday in a lightning attack that brought them closer to the prized city in northern Syria, despite a major increase in Russian airstrikes that Moscow insists are targeting the extremists.
The surprise advance that brought the Islamic State group to within a few miles of Aleppo was the most significant in months, following what has largely been a summer of stalemate in the war against the extremists.
It comes amid a wave of intense Russian airstrikes that have targeted insurgents fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, and a ground offensive by the Syrian army in the country’s central region.
Moscow says it is targeting mainly Islamic State militants, but U.S. officials and Syrian rebels have said the strikes have hit mainstream rebels for the most part and are aimed at shoring up Assad’s embattled government and troops. Many of the rebel groups hit by the Russian strikes are also at war with the Islamic State.
“Everyone who wants to fight the rebels says that they are coming to fight Daesh while in fact they want to fight the rebels,” said Bahaa al-Halaby, an activist based in Aleppo, using an Arabic acronym for the group.
He said the Russians have not carried out attacks against Islamic State in Aleppo, which is split between government forces and various insurgent groups. “They are trying to finish off the rebels,” he said.
Other activists wondered where the Americans were.
“Why didn’t America attack Daesh fighters during their attack?” asked Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Russian General Staff deputy chief Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev said Russian warplanes conducted 67 sorties over the past day — a significant increase over previous days.
He said the strikes killed 100 militants and destroyed an ammunition dump near Aleppo.
“Militants are sustaining substantial losses under the Russian airstrikes and are having to change their tactics, to scatter their forces, to carefully disguise themselves and hide in settlement,” he said.
An international human rights group said Friday that apparent Russian airstrikes on the central town of Talbiseh on Sept. 30 killed at least 17 civilians and wounded 72, adding that the incident should be investigated for possible violations of the laws of war.
Human Rights Watch said local groups operating in the central Homs province said that jets that they believed were Russian conducted strikes on the neighboring towns of Zaafaraneh and Rastan, killing another 17 civilians.
