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Federation Council demands US stop hampering fight against terrorists in Syria

Earlier, the SANA news agency reported that the air forces of the US-led international anti-terror coalition had shot down a Syrian plane near the city of Raqqa

MOSCOW, June 19. /TASS/. The US-led coalition in Syria is conducting provocative activity which is hampering the fight against terrorists, the Federation Council members said on Monday, commenting on the incident involving a Syrian fighter jet.

Earlier, the SANA news agency reported that the air forces of the US-led international anti-terror coalition had shot down a Syrian plane near the city of Raqqa in the country’s north.

According to Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee for Foreign Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, US efforts in Syria are only helping militants. "If you cannot help, just stay out of the way. You are fighting the wrong enemy: it is not the Syrian army that is carrying out terrorist attacks in European capitals," he said in a Facebook post. The senator added that the two latest news headlines from the Syrian Arab Republic - about the liquidation of the IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the downing of the jet - "show who is doing what in Syria."

By the same token, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee, Frants Klintsevich, denounced the US-led coalition’s activity as a provocation. "It is clear that it is not related to defense issues in any way. It is overt aggression and a provocation. And it is Russia who bears the brunt," he told reporters.

"It seems that the US under Donald Trump is a source of a completely new level of threats faced both in the Middle East and around the world," the MP concluded.