A frame grab taken from footage released by Russia's Defence Ministry October 9, 2015, shows a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber dropping a bomb in the air over Syria. REUTERS/Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation/Handout via Reuters

By Orhan Coskun

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey has warned the United States and Russia it will not tolerate Kurdish territorial gains by Kurdish militia close to its frontiers in north-western Syria, two senior officials said.

"This is clear cut for us and there is no joking about it," one official said of the possibility of Syrian Kurdish militia crossing the Euphrates to extend control along Turkish borders from Iraq's Kurdistan region towards the Mediterranean coast.

Turkey fears advances by Kurdish YPG militia, backed by its PYD political wing, on the Syrian side of its 900 km (560-mile) border will fuel separatist ambitions among Kurds in its own southeastern territories. But Washington has supported YPG fighters as an effective force in combating Islamic State.

"The PYD has been getting closer with both the United States and Russia of late. We view the PYD as a terrorist group and we want all countries to consider the consequences of their cooperation," one of the Turkish officials said.

Turkey suspects Russia, which launched air strikes in Syria two weeks ago, has also been lending support to the YPG and PYD.

"With support from Russia, the PYD is trying to capture land between Jarablus and Azaz, going west of the Euphrates. We will never accept this," the official said.

He said Turkey had raised its concerns at high level meetings with the U.S., European Union and Russia.

IRAQI STRIKES

The officials did not say what action, if any, Turkey might take if YPG forces crossed the Euphrates. Ankara has carried out air strikes against Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels based in the mountains of northern Iraq; but attacks on Kurds in Syria would be far riskier, bringing Ankara into possible conflict both with U.S. and Russian air forces.

The YPG said on Monday it had joined forces with Arab rebels and that their new alliance has been promised fresh weapon supplies by the United States for an assault on Islamic State forces in what is effectively their capital, Raqqa.

Turkey has accused the Kurdish militia of pursuing "demographic change" in northern Syria by forcibly displacing Turkmen and Arab communities. Ankara fears ultimately the creation of an independent Kurdish state occupying contiguous territories currently belonging to Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused the YPG, which has seized swathes of northern Syria from Islamic State this year, of committing war crimes by driving out thousands of non-Kurdish civilians and destroying their homes.

The Kurds, who have emerged as the U.S.-led coalition's most capable partner in Syria against Islamic State on the ground, deny such accusations. They say those who left areas they seized did so to escape fighting and are welcome to return.

Over 40,000 people have been killed in a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey since 1984. The collapse of a ceasefire in July has brought a sharp increase in conflict between security forces and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters.

(Additional reporting by Akin Aytekin in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Rebel fighters carry their weapons as they head toward their positions in the town of Kafr Nabudah, in Hama province, Syria, on which forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad are carrying out offensives to take control of the town, October 11, 2015. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian insurgents are deploying extensive supplies of anti-tank missiles provided by their foreign backers to counter ground attacks by the Syrian army and its allies, backed by heavy Russian air strikes, rebel commanders said on Tuesday.

Two rebel commanders contacted by Reuters declined to confirm whether they had received additional missiles since the Russian air strikes began, but said they had "excellent" supplies and were stationing them along a 30 km (20 mile) front to halt the ground offensive.

Activists however said supplies had been stepped up since the Russian air strikes began on Sept. 30.

With the Russian air support and help from Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iranian soldiers, the Syrian army is trying to drive insurgents from western areas that are crucial to President Bashar al-Assad's survival, and has recaptured a number of towns in the provinces of Hama and Latakia.

Russia's two-week-old air campaign has bolstered Assad and left the United States struggling to adjust its troubled military support program for Assad's opponents. On the ground, however, the Syrian army is not making rapid gains.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group tracking the war, said a battle was in progress for control of the town of Kafr Nabuda in Hama province, which the army said it captured on Monday. At least 25 fighters on the government's side were killed, it said.

The town marks the western edge of the defensive line along which the rebels have stationed a dozen anti-tank missile launch platforms, said Ahmed al-Seoud, head of the 13th Division, a foreign-backed faction fighting under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army.

"They are highly effective. They are breaking the Russian-Iranian and Syrian army," he said. "The situation in terms of ammunition and weapons with the Syrian opposition is excellent."

Foreign states opposed to Assad have supplied the TOW guided missiles to a number of rebel groups via an operations room in Turkey, one of the states in the region that wants Assad gone.

The missiles have been widely seen as important to rebel advances earlier this year that had put Assad under pressure.

The Observatory's director, Rami Abdulrahman, said the rebels were using significant numbers of TOWs. "It increased in the last days, and it has proven its effectiveness," he said.

Ibrahim al-Idlibi, an activist who acts as media advisor to several FSA groups in northern Syria, said several dozen army vehicles had been destroyed by TOW missiles in recent days.

"In the last period, the quantities have increased."

LOOKING FOR SUPPORT

The rebels are hoping for more military support from Arab states, notably Saudi Arabia, which has warned Russia that its intervention will escalate the war and inspire more foreign fighters to go to Syria to fight.

Fares al-Bayoush, a former Syrian army colonel who heads the Fursan al-Haq group, also spoke of a battery of TOW missile platforms stretching east along the frontline from Kafr Nabuda to the village of Maan.

The aim is to stop government forces advancing north from Morek to rebel-held Khan Shaykhoun, both towns on a north-south highway linking the city of Hama to Aleppo and Idlib.

"We have an excellent supply of missiles," Bayoush told Reuters from Syria, via an internet-based messaging system. "We will, God willing, move to attack, not just defense."

Echoing that hope to go back on the offensive, an alliance of insurgents that has been targeted by Russian air strikes said on Tuesday it was starting an operation to recapture Hama.

The Army of Conquest, which captured most of the neighboring Idlib province in May, includes al Qaeda's Syria wing Nusra Front, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham faction and groups including Chechen and central Asian fighters. But it will struggle to advance in the face of the Russian air strikes and Syrian army assault, Abdulrahman said.

Both sides have sent reinforcements to the area. Hezbollah has redeployed all its fighters in Syria to take part in the battle in the northwest, according to sources familiar with political and military developments in Syria.

A Hezbollah officer was killed on Monday in Idlib province, a Lebanese security source said. A senior Hezbollah commander, Hassan al-Haj, was also killed in the same area in recent days.

Abdulrahman said insurgents sent to Kafr Nabuda - many of them from jihadist groups - had helped prevent the army from recapturing the town.

Rebel fighters and weapons also arrived in the strategically important Ghab Plain on Monday, a rebel fighter in the area said. The Ghab region lies next to the mountains that the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect. He said one of the groups there was also using TOW missiles.

RUSSIAN EMBASSY ATTACK

Two shells landed near the Russian embassy in Damascus on Tuesday, while a small pro-Moscow demonstration was taking place, but there were no reports of casualties or damage to the embassy building.

Interfax news agency said Russia's air force carried out 88 sorties in the last 24 hours, one of the biggest totals of its campaign.

Moscow says its air campaign has targeted Islamic State fighters, although many of its strikes have taken place in territory controlled by rival rebel group supported by Assad's foreign enemies, prompting Western condemnation.

Syria's foreign ministry responded on Tuesday, saying Europe was trying to misrepresent the Russian intervention, which it said had "demonstrated the credibility and determination of the Russian and Syrian leadership to combat terrorism".

A ministry source quoted by state media said the Russian campaign came in response to a formal Syrian request - unlike air strikes carried out by U.S.-led coalition - "and these joint efforts will find the appropriate circumstances to launch the political path to solve the crisis in Syria".

The Russian intervention in the four-year Syrian war has caught U.S. President Barack Obama's administration off guard. Washington has been trying to defeat Islamic State while still calling for Assad's downfall.

On Sunday, U.S. forces airdropped small arms ammunition and other supplies to Syrian Arab rebels in the east of the country. Rebels there said the arm supplies could mark the preparation for an offensive in the coming weeks against the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa city.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam and Sylvia Westall; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Moscow (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday slammed Washington for refusing to share intelligence with Russia on Syria, accusing it of muddled thinking.

"I believe some of our partners simply have mush for brains," Putin said, expressing some of his strongest criticism yet of Washington's handling of the Syrian crisis.

Late last month Moscow launched a bombing campaign in Syria, saying it needed to target Islamic State jihadists before they cross into Russia, which has a large Muslim population.

But Washington and its allies slammed Russia's intervention in the conflict, saying Moscow was also targeting Western-backed moderate rebels and sought to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

"Now, we often hear that our pilots are striking the wrong targets, not IS," Putin said at an investment forum in Moscow explaining that Russia had asked Washington to provide a list of targets.

But Washington declined.

"'No, we are not ready for this' was the answer," Putin quoted them as saying.

"Then we thought again and asked another question: then tell us where we should not strike. No answer too," he said, adding: "That is not a joke. I did not make this up."

"How is it possible to work together?" he asked.

"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 also took issue with a decision by a US-led coalition to parachute in ammunition to rebels in Syria, saying the weapons could end up in the wrong hands.

In televised comments at the weekend, Putin acknowledged that Russia wanted to buttress the Syrian regime, saying Moscow's task was to "stabilise the legitimate authorities and create conditions for the search of political compromise."