UPDATE - Russian airstrikes kill 7 in war-battered Aleppo

ADDS STATE DEPT, PENTAGON COMMENTS

By Halit Suleyman

ALEPPO, Syria (AA) – Seven civilians were killed and another 45 injured by Russian airstrikes carried out in Syria’s northwestern Aleppo province, a local civil defense official said Tuesday.

"Russian warplanes struck the opposition-controlled towns of Al-Shear, Misqan Khanuna, Muyesir, Karm al-Tarrab, Firdous and Al-Sukkari east of Aleppo," Najib Ensari, an Aleppo-based civil defense official, told Anadolu Agency.

Civil defense teams managed to rescue a number of people from under the rubble of collapsed buildings, Ensari said.

Russia launched coordinated missile strikes against rebels in Syria on Tuesday, and Moscow for the first time used its only aircraft carrier in combat, according to the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

The State Department strongly condemned the attacks as a violation of international law because it hit civilian facilities.

"The resumption of air strikes today, I won't say is a surprise. It's certainly a disappointment," agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said during a press briefing.

She added that the U.S. was at the table again with the Russians in Geneva for the provision of humanitarian aid but blamed Moscow for having chosen to back Assad and not join Washingotn in that goal as the strikes happened during the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said he hoped the recent offensive was not part of an effort to force a fait accompli in terms of the balance of power in Aleppo amid the transition of power in the U.S.

On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that cruise missiles and jets from the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov were involved in the offensive.

"From a pure military perspective, Russia already has significant capabilities inside Syria," Davis said. "Anything that they bring in from the outside, if it's aircraft carriers or if it's cruise missiles launching from ships or if it's long-range strike bombers flying in from Russia, those are done for show," Davis added.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed -- and more than 10 million displaced -- across the war-battered country, according to UN figures.

The Syrian Center for Policy Research, a Beirut-based NGO, has put the total death toll from the five-year-old conflict at more than 470,000.