RUSSIAN Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that Russia had for the first time struck Islamic State targets in Syria with missiles fired from a submarine in the Mediterranean.

    “The targets were two large terrorist positions in the territory of Raqqa,” Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting, adding that the Calibre missiles had been fired from the submarine Rostov-on-Don.

    “We can say with complete confidence that fairly serious damage was done to weapons stores and a factory for preparing mines and, naturally, oil infrastructure.”

    Shoigu said Russia had informed Israel and the United States in advance of its plan to launch missiles from a submarine.

    He said that, over the previous three days, Russia’s air force had flown more than 300 sorties over Syria and struck more than 600 targets of various types.

    Russian bombers flying over Syria were being accompanied by fighter jets, as Putin had ordered, he added.

    Russia began intervening directly in Syria’s civil war at the end of September with airstrikes in support of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad.

    But the intervention has had unintended consequences, notably when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet that it said had strayed into Turkish airspace, an allegation that Russia denies.

    Shoigu presented the flight recorder of the downed jet to Putin at the meeting.

    Putin thanked Russian special services and Syrian Government troops for recovering it, and said it would allow experts to determine where exactly the Russian plane was located when it was hit. He said it should be opened only in the presence of international experts, “to carefully document everything.”

    Russia’s Foreign Ministry also voiced concern Tuesday about the reported bombing of a Syrian army camp without addressing the U.S. claim that Russia was responsible for the bombing.

    The Syrian Government blamed aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition for targeting the army camp in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour on Sunday night, killing three Syrian soldiers and wounding 13. The U.S. denied the claim, and a senior U.S. official military said Washington was “certain” it was a Russian airstrike that had hit the camp. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

    Without commenting on the U.S. claim, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it has “serious concerns” about reports of the coalition strike in Deir el-Zour. It said the incident was rooted in the U.S.-led coalition’s reluctance to coordinate with Damascus on its campaign against the Islamic State group.

    The ministry also mentioned a coalition strike in Syria’s province of Hassake that reportedly involved civilian casualties.

    The ministry said that the Turkish military’s deployment to a base near Mosul in Iraq without Iraqi Government sanction has added to the tensions.

    (SD-Agencies)