"An officer of Russian special operations forces was killed near Palmyra while carrying out a special task to direct Russian airstrikes at Islamic State group targets," the unnamed representative said, without giving the date of the incident. 
 
 "The officer was carrying out a combat task in area for a week, identifying crucial IS targets and passing exact coordinates for strikes with Russian planes," he said. 
 
 "The officer died as a hero, he drew fire onto himself after being located and surrounded by terrorists," he said. 
 
 Moscow has been tight-lipped about having any soldiers on the ground throughout its campaign in Syria that began on September 30. 
 
 View gallery . Smoke rises near Palmyra castle during shelling by Syrian troops on the outskirts of the ancient city of Palmyra … 
 
 However Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov at the time denied that Russian officers were participating in the advance on Palmyra, saying that "the advance is carried out by contingents of the Syrian army". 
 
 Syrian troops on Thursday entered the ancient city of Palmyra, which had been controlled by IS since last May, and clashes were ongoing in the city. 
 
 Backed by Russian warplanes and allied militia on the ground, the Syrian army advanced into Palmyra after launching a desert offensive early this month, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 
 
 The defence ministry in Moscow said Russian aircraft carried out 146 strikes on "terrorist targets" in the Palmyra area between Wednesday and last Sunday. View gallery . In this photo provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service a pair of Russian Su-25 ground attack jets … ||||| MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian special forces officer has been killed in a combat operation near Palmyra in Syria, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday, citing a Russian military source in Syria. 
 
 “While performing a special task to direct Russian air strikes onto terrorist targets, a Russian special forces officer was killed,” Interfax quoted a source at Russia’s Khmeimim air base in Syria’s Latakia province as saying. 
 
 There was no detail about when the officer died, with Interfax citing its source as saying only that he was on a combat mission “in the past week”. Syrian government forces are trying to recapture Palmyra from Islamic State. 
 
 “The soldier died heroically, calling the strike onto himself after he was discovered and surrounded by terrorists,” Interfax cited the source as saying. 
 
 The death would bring to seven the number of Russian servicemen known to have been killed in Syria during the Kremlin’s five-month military campaign, which it said 10 days ago that it was winding down. 
 
 On Wednesday, Russia said for the first time that it has special forces in combat roles in Syria, suggesting the Kremlin has been more deeply engaged in the Syrian conflict than it has previously acknowledged. 
 
 For months, Moscow said that its role in Syria was limited to carrying out air strikes, advising and training the Syrian army, as well as performing search and rescue operations for downed aircraft as well as protecting Russian bases. 
 
 A major with an elite unit from Russia’s interior ministry was killed in Syria last month, several of his former comrades told Reuters on Wednesday, though Russian officials are yet to acknowledge his death.
– A Russian special forces soldier appears to have pulled a move straight out of an action movie, calling down an airstrike on himself after he was discovered by ISIS troops in Syria, Reuters reports. According to AFP, the soldier was on a week-long mission identifying ISIS targets and passing the coordinates along for airstrikes. He called for his final, dramatic airstrike at some point in the past week near Palmyra. "The soldier died heroically, calling the strike onto himself after he was discovered and surrounded by terrorists," Reuters quotes the Interfax news agency. The Russian soldier is at least the seventh killed in Syria since Russia launched a military campaign in the Middle Eastern country back in September. But it was only this week that Russia finally admitted it had special forces soldiers participating in combat missions inside Syria. Syrian troops entered Palmyra on Thursday. It had been held by ISIS since last May.