Putin ‘asks for map of rebel forces’ so his bombers can hit Islamic State instead

Vladimir Putin has asked for a map of rebel forces in Syria so his forces can avoid bombing them and direct their power against Islamic State instead. The Russian leader called for the information at talks with French president Francois Hollande at which they agreed to exchange intelligence to make their attacks more effective. “He asked us to draw up a map of forces that are not terrorists and are fighting Daesh (Islamic State). He committed to not bombing them once we’ve provided that,” foreign minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday, the day after he accompanied Mr Hollande to Moscow. However, the Kremlin also said on Friday that Western powers were not ready to form a coalition to fight Islamic State jihadists in Syria.

There is now one point which everyone agrees and that is the objective of destroying Daesh. I think on that we are progressing.

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius

The West has accused Moscow of targeting mostly Western-backed rebel groups fighting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad rather than IS. The fate of Mr Assad remained a stumbling block to cooperation between Moscow and the West, with the two leaders at odds at the talks. “If we want to move towards a free, united … Syria, it cannot be that he (Assad) who is at the origin of 300,000 deaths and millions of refugees can lead (Syria) … Assad cannot be the future of his people,” Mr Fabius said. Meanwhile, a new wave of airstrikes on the city of Raqqa — the headquarters of IS — has killed at least eight people, including five children. The casualties were in the city’s Heten School, monitors said, with some putting the death toll at 12.

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