US President Barack Obama has warned Russia that its bombing campaign to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will suck Moscow into a quagmire that will be hard to get out of.
As stated by Obama, Russia was also failing to distinguish between Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters and more moderate rebels in Syria.
“An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire and it won’t work,” Obama told a White House news conference on Friday.
“From their perspective, they’re all terrorists. And that’s a recipe for disaster.”
Russia continued bombing Syria on Friday for a third straight day. Targets have included ISIL’s main stronghold in Raqqa, but also the provinces of Hama, Aleppo and Idlib where few ISIL fighters operate.
Obama said he would not turn the Syrian civil war into a “proxy war” between the United States and Russia. “This is not some superpower chessboard contest,” he stated.