MOSCOW/BEIRUT: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that “two-faced policy” of the United States was to blame for the death of Russian general Valery Asapov in Syria, RIA news agency quoted him as saying on Monday.

“The death of the Russian commander is the price, the bloody price for the two-faced American policy in Syria,” Ryabkov told reporters, according to RIA.

The Russian defence ministry said on Sunday the general had been killed by shelling near Deir Ezzor.

Meanwhile, US-backed Syrian militias said Russian warplanes struck their positions in Deir Ezzor province on Monday, which Moscow denied, generating friction between two rival campaigns against the militant Islamic State group.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting with a US-led coalition said the attack killed one of its fighters and injured two.

Major-General Igor Konashenkov of Russia’s defence ministry was cited by RIA news agency as issuing a denial, saying Russia was always careful to ensure its air strikes were accurate. A spokesman for the US-led coalition, Colonel Ryan Dillon, said rounds had hit in the area around the SDF but he could not confirm they were fired by Russia.

A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Russian rounds had not hit the SDF near Deir Ezzor.

The SDF later said it had responded to the source of fire that targeted it from near the city of Deir Ezzor on Monday morning without specifying which forces it had attacked.

Russia and the United States back separate offensives against IS in eastern Syria, both of which are advancing in oil-rich Deir Ezzor province bordering Iraq.

The assaults are converging on IS from opposite sides of the Euphrates that bisects the province, the jihadists’ last major foothold in Syria, with the river often acting as a dividing line. But their proximity has at times raised the risk of clashes that could stoke tensions between the competing world powers. With Russian air support and Iran-backed militias, Syrian troops are advancing along the west bank of the river.

A Kurdish commander of the SDF, which has approached along the east bank with US jets and special forces, said on Monday the alliance expected to completely push IS out of its former Syrian headquarters of Raqqa within a month.

With the Kurdish YPG militia at its forefront, the SDF said last week that, after seizing 80 per cent of Raqqa, the battle for the city had entered its final stages.

“In the coming days, the battles will be at their most intense...,” said Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, spokeswoman for the offensive.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2017