Truce collapses in Syria's south amid offensive

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The U.S. said it had downed the Syrian jet a day earlier after it dropped bombs near the U.S. -backed Syrian Democratic Forces conducting operations against the Islamic State group, adding that was something it would not tolerate.

This is the first time since its 1980s war with Iraq that Iran has launched a major missile strike outside the country.

Iran is a solid backer of the Syrian regime and has given President Bashar Assad extensive military and political support.

As it tries to craft a Syria strategy, the Trump administration is divided between those who consider Islamic State the primary enemy and some officials who think the war in Syria is part of an existential struggle between the United States and its Gulf allies on the one hand and Iran on the other, said a third USA official, who has participated in government deliberations on Syria. The extremists increasingly have fled to Deir el-Zour as the Islamic State group's de facto capital of Raqqa has come under punishing USA -led airstrikes. In April, Russia briefly suspended cooperation after the us military fired 59 missiles at a Syrian air base following a chemical weapons attack that Washington blamed on the Assad government.

The Russian defense ministry said in a statement on Monday that it was suspending the deal after the US military confirmed that it downed a Syrian Air Force fighter jet on Sunday after it dropped bombs near USA partner forces. "If the regime continues attacking our positions in Raqqa province, we will be forced to retaliate", SDF spokesman Talal Silo said.

Iran will make all efforts to ensure its stability and security, and fight terrorism, Qasemi was quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency as saying.

Both the Iranian strikes and the US's downing of the Syrian plane, followed by its tensions with Russian Federation, come as various players in the region jostle and scramble for position to take over territory in the post-ISIS era.

A USA fighter jet shot down a Syrian warplane Sunday after it dropped bombs near local ground forces supported by the United States, the first time the US military has downed a Syrian aircraft since the start of the civil war in 2011, officials said.

Tasnim reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched the mid-range ground-to-ground missiles from western Iran into the Deir al Zour region of eastern Syria, killing a "large number" of terrorists and destroying their equipment and weapons.

The Guards' missile strike sends a message that extends beyond the fighting in Syria, said non-resident fellow Amir Handjani at the Atlantic Council research centre.

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The comments are in line with statements from other Iranian politicians and military officials during the past several days, following Iran's missile strike on several key areas in Syria, a move Tehran claimed was in reaction to a recent ISIS-backed terror strike inside Iran.

The launch of surface-to-surface, medium-range missiles into Syria's Deir el-Zour province comes as Islamic State militants fleeing a US -led coalition onslaught increasingly try to fortify their positions there. A projectile can be seen hitting a building followed by thick black smoke billowing out.

Syrian state television, quoting army sources, said they had resumed the offensive, which took place as USA and Russian officials were holding another round of secret talks on creating a "de-escalation zone" in southwestern Syria that would include Daraa.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif defended the attack in a Twitter post on Monday.

"Riyadh must know that all of its oil regions are within the range of Iranian missiles", he said.

Other Iranian officials were blunter in their assessment of the attack. The strike was in retaliation for a pair of terrorist attacks in Tehran on June 7th that killed 12 and wounded 46.

Ozerov insisted that Russia will be tracking the coalition's jets, not shooting them down, but he added that "a threat for those jets may appear only if they take action that pose a threat to Russian aircraft".

"The (Syrian) regime is always testing and pushing the boundaries", said Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut. "This I think it's pretty high level chess", Krauthammer said.

"We should remain vigilant of the Americans and not trust them".

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