Moscow said today it had carried out its most intense day of air raids yet in Syria, as jihadists called for revenge attacks and rockets hit the Russian embassy in Damascus.
With Russia's involvement having an increasingly dramatic effect on Syria's conflict, President Vladimir Putin slammed Washington for refusing to cooperate with Moscow.
The defence ministry in Moscow said Russia's air force had hit 86 "terrorist" targets in Syria in the past 24 hours, in the highest one-day tally since it launched its bombing campaign on September 30.
The ministry said it had hit several positions of the Islamic State group, which Russia insists it is targeting in the air campaign.
Washington and its allies -- who are carrying out their own air war against IS in Syria and Iraq -- have accused Moscow of targeting Western-backed moderate rebels and seeking to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime Russian ally.
Putin hit back at the West, criticising Washington for refusing to share intelligence with Russia on Syria and accusing it of muddled thinking.
"I think some of our partners simply have mush for brains, they do not have a clear understanding of what really happens in the country and what goals they are seeking to achieve," he said.
Russia's increasing attacks prompted a warning from Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, with its chief Abu Mohamed al-Jolani urging jihadists in the Caucasus to target Russians.
"If the Russian army kills the people of Syria, then kill their people. And if they kill our soldiers, then kill their soldiers. An eye for an eye," Jolani said in an audio recording released late Monday.
He pledged that Moscow's air war would have dire consequences.
"The war in Syria will make the Russians forget the horrors that they found in Afghanistan," Jolani said.
Russia's embassy compound in Damascus was struck by two rockets today, sparking panic among some 300 demonstrators waving Russian flags and pictures of Putin in support of Moscow's intervention.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets were fired from the eastern edges of the capital, where Islamist rebels are entrenched.
"Two rockets hit embassy territory at 10:15 am. No one was killed or wounded," Russian news agency Interfax quoted an embassy official as saying.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow it was an "act of terror".
