On Syria: Russia's Lavrov says Washington declines deeper military talks

Media reports suggest that Saudi Arabia has begun supplying the US-backed rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) with TOW guided anti-tank missiles.

An official with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said no one was hurt in the shelling.

The reinforcements came from factions including the Turkistan Islamic Party, a foreign jihadist group also operating in the area, and Syrian rebel groups, he said.

That, he said, is far more realistic than trying to negotiate a successor government when President Bashar al-Assad clearly has no interest in stepping down and when there is no mechanism to enforce a peace at a time when the army is distrusted in the eyes of many Syrians. Moscow insists it is mainly targeting the Islamic State group and other "terrorists", but the ground-and-air offensive is being waged in areas controlled by U.S.-backed rebels as well as other insurgents, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front. Russian Federation has denied the allegation.

"If the Russian army kills the people of Syria, then kill their people".

Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, called the Russian strikes "reckless" and "indiscriminate".

The United States and Russian Federation are due to hold another round of military talks on Wednesday as the two Cold War adversaries seek to avoid an inadvertent clash during their bombing campaigns over Syria.

"Our talks there are very professional, they're very constructive, and I expect them to lead in very short order to an agreement", U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a news briefing.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets were fired from the eastern edges of the capital, where Islamist rebels are entrenched.

Jolani said he would pay "three million euros ($3.4 million) for anyone who can kill Bashar al-Assad and end his story".

"They are highly effective". The Syrian regime has purchased billions of dollars worth of Russian weapons.

"If we don't have somebody there now that is beholden to the United States", he said, "then we're going to have nobody in that post Assad game". "It increased in the last days, and it has proven its effectiveness", he said.

The Syrian state-run news agency SANA said the rally outside the embassy was a show of support by Syrians "expressing their thanks for Russia's seriousness in fighting terrorism".

Sahl al-Ghab, at the intersection of Hama, Latakia and Idlib provinces, has been a major target for Russian air strikes.

Moscow's strikes have concentrated on areas in northwestern Syria where Al-Nusra has a powerful presence, mostly in the province of Idlib.

David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Xinhua that there is such a possibility, but both sides are going to try to avoid that and are in touch with each other at relatively low levels among military professionals to prevent that from happening.

This week, US military cargo planes gave 50 tons of ammunition to rebel groups in northern Syria, using an air drop of 112 pallets.

"The Iraqi government wants to do this in a way that doesn't look like they're pushing the Americans away", he said.

An Associated Press reporter who was outside the embassy when the first shell slammed into the compound in central Damascus saw smoke billowing from inside.

Interfax news agency said Russia's air force carried out 88 sorties in the last 24 hours, one of the biggest totals of its campaign.

The European Union Foreign Affairs Council isn't buying Russia's claims that ISIS is its primary target in Syria.

U.S.-led air strikes on Islamic State militants who control a third of Iraq, have failed to turn the tide in Iraq's conflict, which has sapped the OPEC oil producer's finances and fueled sectarian bloodletting.