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Fight against Islamic state

Russian General Staff: IS commanders dump dead militants’ bodies in sewage

Massive air strikes have inflicted huge personnel casualties on the terrorists

© Hadi Al-Abdallah via AP video, File

MOSCOW, November 19 /TASS/. Huge loss of life is forcing the IS field commanders to evacuate the dead militants’ corpses from the battlefield at night and dump them in sewage, Colonel General Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the main operations directorate of the Russian Army General Staff, said on Thursday.

Read also

Russian general: Islamic State acknowledged elimination of 3 field commanders

"As far as we know, in view of the fact that huge losses make it impossible to bury all the fighters according to the Islamic tradition, the field commanders have decided to dump the bodies of ordinary militants in cesspits," Kartapolov told journalists at a briefing.

According to him, massive air strikes have inflicted huge personnel casualties on the terrorists.

"With an aim to conceal the true losses, the killed and wounded are being evacuated at night time. It is known that a militant with the ‘Abu Obeida’ call sign has been ordered to secretly remove the corpses from the southern outskirts of Aleppo to the Khan al-Assal populated locality," Kartapolov added.

He said that the Russian military used satellites to check the facts of hitting terrorist targets in Syria and received information on the loss of life among the terrorists from the Syrian army.

Read also

According to him, objective control data received from planes and unmanned aerial vehicles makes it possible to assess how effective the Russian air strikes are.

"Space reconnaissance data is used to verify the damage of most vital targets. We receive reports about the loss of life among terrorists from the Syrian side," Kartapolov said.

Russian warplanes have been delivering air strikes at terrorist facilities in Syria since September 30 at the request of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Russian military started massive air strikes, involving the long-range aviation - Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic bombers and Tu-22M3 long-range bomber aircraft - on November 17.

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Russia’s long-range strategic bombers in action over Syria

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