“The Russians don’t give a good goddamn about women and children or any innocents either.”
There are no “innocent” Muslims. In a war, the whole population is the enemy. That’s the way it has to be in order to win.
Remember the Nazis and the Japs? During WW2 were there any good ones? (that’s the last war we won BTW)
Assad certainly helped Al Qaeda in the past, he’s a terrorist and Putin is a terrorist.
Surgical strikes breed guerrilla movements. The only way to prevent this is by involving the civilian population to the point they won’t harbor and hide soldiers and fighters. This is why our modern wars last so much longer than wars prior to Vietnam.