AFP, Moscow :Russian’s military on Thursday blasted targets across Syria with long-range strategic bombers for a third day, the defence ministry said, as Moscow pressed on with its intensified air campaign in the country.Strategic bombers flying over Russian territory unleashed 12 cruise missiles at Islamic State group targets including warehouses and command posts in the Idlib and Aleppo provinces as they launched their “third massive air strike”, the defence ministry said in a statement.Powerful long-distance Tu-22 bombers also struck six targets including three “major plants” for refining oil in IS strongholds in the Raqa and Deir Ezzor provinces, Moscow said.Meanwhile jets stationed at Russia’s base in government-held territory in Syria hit 138 targets around the country on Thursday, the statement said.Moscow ratcheted up its bombing campaign in Syria on Tuesday after confirming for the first time that a Russian passenger plane that crashed in Egypt last month was brought down by a bomb.Russia first launched air strikes on Syria in September at the request of its long-standing ally President Bashar al-Assad, while a US-led coalition of countries opposed to the Syrian strongman is conducting a separate air campaign against IS.The Russian air force also hit targets around Palmyra on Monday.Russia is began its airstrikes on Syria on September 30, saying they were primarily targeting Islamic State, though the US and its allies in a separate coalition say that Moscow is mainly attacking more moderate groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s army.Moscow has adjusted rhetoric recently regarding the rebels fighting Assad in Syria, from discrediting the Western-backed Free Syrian Army as practically non-existent to last month proposing air support to moderate rebels.On Thursday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denied that Moscow labelled all rebel groups as terrorists.”We have stated that there are terrorists, extremists, and the Syrian opposition part of which does have weapons.””We are in practically daily contact with various representatives of the Syrian opposition,” she added, without elaborating on specific groups.Meanwhile, Amarnath Amarasingam, a researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who studies the phenomenon of Muslims leaving Canada to fight for groups like Islamic State in Syria, said Quebec had become an increasingly active area for Islamic radicalization.He said he had confirmed through his contacts with foreign fighters that some 18 residents have left the province to fight with Islamic State since last year, more than half of them departing in January alone. That number, he said, brings Quebec roughly in line with the provinces of Alberta and Ontario, the other two most active areas.”I’m not sure what’s been happening in Quebec, but it has definitely popped onto the map,” he said. “This is perhaps partly to do with Quebec’s highly secular culture … but also the struggle to retain a French identity.”He said that any backlash against Muslims since the Paris attacks could be counter-productive.
