Russian Federation started its air campaign in Syria saying it would only target ISIL, but its mission has been a broad-based campaign to support Assad against a variety of rebel groups, including those who have received USA backing, Syrian activists and US officials say. That is separate to one set up by the Pentagon to train and equip Syrian insurgents to fight IS.
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Putin, by contrast, has a single proxy in Syria and a clear goal: keeping Assad in power.
“In addition to the air force, four warships of the Caspian flotilla have been involved”, Shoigu said, adding that the warships had carried out 26 cruise missile strikes against 11 targets.
As many as four landed instead in Iran, according to three US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Gen. Ali Ayoub, the Syrian army’s chief of staff, said Russia’s airstrikes had weakened the Islamic State fighters and other insurgents so that his troops could keep up the initiative.
The current internal administration debate is largely the same one that has kept the administration out of significant intervention in Syria’s civil war for the past four years.
Washington is not prepared to cooperate with Russia’s strategy that is “tragically flawed”, he said. “We expect a response from our colleagues”.
The Russian airstrikes in Syria hit northern parts of Hama province and nearby areas in Idlib province, targeting towns close to the main north-south highway that runs through major cities in the west of the country, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
Recent efforts by the United Nations and others to organize new negotiations, beginning with localized ceasefires, have already begun to fall apart under Russian bombardment that is likely to change Assad’s calculus. A report Wednesday said Russian jets had shadowed a USA drone, but a senior defense official downplayed the seriousness of the incident. “We’ve been completely blown out of the water”.
The cruise missiles flew over the Caucasus Mountains, Iran and Iraq before veering toward Islamic State-held areas, shocking military analysts who said they were unaware that the weapons had such long-range capability. But while the group has been the target of a few of its air strikes, it has no foothold in the areas of western Syria targeted in the attacks on Wednesday and Thursday.
But Russian Federation has now seized the initiative in Syria and this coordinated offensive with Assad’s forces could be a game changer.
Wednesday’s clashes are the fiercest in the last month, the observatory said.
Maj. Mustafa Alkenj, a commander with the 13th division of the Free Syrian Army, said his forces managed to repel the assault.
Russia’s entry into the crowded and sometimes uncoordinated air wars in Syria is making the US increasingly nervous, reflecting concern at the Pentagon and in Europe about the risk of accidents or unintended conflict.
The Islamic State – also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh – has strongholds in Raqqa and Aleppo provinces, while Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate, the Nusra Front, has a strong presence in Idlib.
That region has been under discussion between the United States and Turkey as a possible protected area where rebels can regroup and refugees can gather. “The intensity of the strikes is increasing”.
Earlier on Tuesday, Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters that Islamic State gunmen were hiding from Russian airstrikes in mosques.
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But Russian officials deny ramping up military activity.
