Russia military police deploy in north Syria under truce deal
Russian military police deployed on the streets of Syria's northeast border town of Kobane on Thursday under a deal with Turkey to drive out Kurdish fighters, Al Jazeera reported.
Moscow will send a further 276 military policemen and 33 units of military hardware to Syria in a week, Russia's RIA news agency cited a defence ministry source as saying.
Their arrival marked the start of a mission by Russian and Syrian security forces to push Kurdish fighters 30km (19 miles) into Syria under an accord reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Kobane is of special significance to Kurdish forces who fought off Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) fighters trying to seize the city in 2014-15 in one of the fiercest battles of Syria's conflict.
The Russia-Turkey deal on Tuesday sealed the return of Russia's ally President Bashar al-Assad's forces along the northeastern border for the first time in years. It also marked Moscow's deepening influence in the region two weeks after the United States started to pull out forces from Syria.