“Australia is anxious about the suspension of the de-confliction line between Russian Federation and the United States as a result of the downing of the Syrian jet”, said Dr Khatib told CNN.
Advertisement
After the warning, the coalition announced that it would reposition its aircraft over Syria as a prudent measure.
The United States, he added, “is dealing with it defensively and reactively”.
In Canberra, a Defense Department statement said on Tuesday that “Australian Defense Force protection is regularly reviewed in response to a range of potential threats”.
“We are very well prepared and positioned to defend ourselves”, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Army Col. Ryan Dillon said earlier this month.
Tensions have also flared between USA forces and the Syrian regime further north, where the coalition is supporting an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters battling to oust IS from the city of Raqa.
The incident comes two days after an American F/A-18 warplane allegedly shot down a Syrian fighter Su-22 near the Syrian city of Taqba in the southern Raqqa area.
In six years of civil war that has ravaged Syria, it was the first time the United States has shot down one of the country’s planes.
Russian Federation on Monday said that it was closing the communication line after a U.S. F-18 Super Hornet downed a Syrian government SU-22 fighter-bomber on Sunday. The US backs the SDF.
The coalition statement said the location was close to where another “pro-regime” drone – which intelligence sources had also identified as Iranian – was shot down on June 8 after dropping bombs near coalition forces. State officials, though, say they’re confident the technology is secure.
That presents a major challenge for the coalition, which so far has shunned any cooperation with President Bashar Assad and has partnered instead with local Kurdish-led forces.
Tom Greathouse, an auto fix business owner who voted for Handel early Tuesday morning at a high school in Johns Creek, said he still was encouraged to see so many neighbors talking about the race.
A Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says the USA is moving toward a military confict with Russian Federation and Iran in Syria.
The unprecedented USA downing of a Syrian regime warplane highlights the rapidly shifting dynamic in the six-year conflict where President Donald Trump has given American commanders a freer rein in the battlefield.
“In Syria this type of strike is akin to complicity with terrorism”, deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency. “It is, if you like, help to those terrorists that the USA is fighting against, declaring they are carrying out an anti-terrorism policy”.
Of course, Handel’s benefited from outside money, too; it just hasn’t flowed through her campaign, which has raised less than a quarter of Ossoff’s haul.
One official said that the drone was shot down because it was “assessed to be a threat”. The force will continue normal operations in Iraq, reports Australia’s News.com.
Sunday’s incident marks the latest in a series of U.S. attacks on pro-regime forces.
Sharif said the missile launch reflected Iran’s “military power”, though Iran has no intention of starting another war.
USA officials are trying to calm the escalating situation and said they wanted to relaunch the “deconflcition’ hotline”.
The link is just a regular phone line staffed on the U.S. side by a Russian-speaking officer in an operations center at a base in Qatar, and has been used nearly daily since its inception.
Aron Lund, also a fellow at the Century Foundation, said that even though Russian Federation and the USA may not be interested in an escalation, it is not a given that they can help their allies in Syria avoid it.
“And we have to understand what we’re getting involved in, right”.
Advertisement
Tensions are also manifesting themselves in other arenas.
