NATO Airstrike Kills 80 Syrian Soldiers, Russia calls an emergency Security Council Meeting

Hours after US-led coalition airstrikes reportedly killed dozens of Syrian troops, the US and Russian ambassadors to the United Nations chastised each other outside an emergency Security Council meeting.

The strike occurred Saturday in an eastern part of Syria that is not a part of a delicate and nearly week-old ceasefire. The US military said it was targeting ISIS militants and if it hit Syrian troops, it was an accident.

Russia and Syria said the strikes prove Washington and its allies are sympathetic to ISIS.

The Russian military said 62 Syrian soldiers were killed near Deir Ezzor Airport, according to state media. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at 83 and said at least 120 soldiers were wounded.

Russia's permanent UN representative, Vitaly Churkin, questioned the timing of the strikes, two days before Russian-American coordination in the fight against terror groups in Syria was to begin.

"I have never seen such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness," he said, after abruptly leaving an UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria. Churkin was upset with US ambassador Samantha Power, who lambasted Russia's support of the Syrian regime to the media outside the meeting while he was speaking.