Russian warplanes conducted their first air strikes in Syria, AFP reported quoting Russia’s defense ministry.
A Syrian security source said the warplanes hit three Syrian provinces along with regime aircraft on Wednesday, AFP reported.

Syrian rebels hit by Russian airstrikes

A U.S. official told Reuters the Russian sorties so far did not appear to be targeting ISIS-held territory.
The official said Russia was carrying out strikes in the vicinity of Homs and perhaps other areas in Syria as well.
The Syrian opposition says the airstrikes that Russian are conducting aims at bolstering Assad forces and are raining down on the opposition forces.
The Free Syrian Army, a foreign-backed opposition group, said the airstrikes wounded eight of its fighters.
“The northern countryside of Hama has no presence of ISIS at all and is under the control of the Free Syrian Army,” Major Jamil al-Saleh, who defected from the Syrian army in 2012, told Reuters via telephone.
Areas of the Syrian province of Homs struck in Russian air strikes on Wednesday are controlled by an array of rebel groups including several operating under the banner of the “Free Syrian Army,” activists, locals and rebels said.

None of the sources named ISIS as one of the groups operating in the areas hit on Wednesday.
Additionally, a French diplomatic source told Reuters that the Russian strikes appear to target Syrian opposition, not ISIS.
Russia cautioned the United States to clear Syrian airspace ahead of the strikes, the U.S. official said, adding, however, that the U.S.-led coalition was “continuing to fly missions in Syria.”