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 Russian warplanes, in a second day of strikes, bombed a camp run
by rebels trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the
group's commander said, putting Moscow and Washington on opposing
sides in a Middle East conflict for the first time since the Cold
War.
Senior U.S. and Russian officials spoke for just over an hour by
secure video conference on Thursday, focusing on ways to keep air
crews safe, the Pentagon said, as the two militaries carry out
parallel campaigns with competing objectives.
"We made crystal clear that, at a minimum, the priority here should
be the safe operation of the air crews over Syria," Pentagon
spokesman Peter Cook said.
Two Lebanese sources told Reuters hundreds of Iranian troops had
reached Syria in the past 10 days with weapons to mount a major
ground offensive. They would also be backed by Assad's Lebanese
Hezbollah allies and by Shi'ite militia fighters from Iraq, while
Russia would provide air support.
 "The vanguard of Iranian ground forces began arriving in Syria
-soldiers and officers specifically to participate in this battle.
They are not advisers ... we mean hundreds with equipment and
weapons. They will be followed by more," one of the sources said.
So far, direct Iranian military support for Assad has come mostly in
the form of military advisers. Iran has also mobilized Shi'ite
militia fighters, including Iraqis and some Afghans, to fight
alongside Syrian government forces.
Moscow said it had hit Islamic State positions, but the areas it
struck near the cities of Hama and Homs are mostly held by a rival
insurgent alliance, which unlike Islamic State is supported by U.S.
allies including Arab states and Turkey.
Hassan Haj Ali, head of the Liwa Suqour al-Jabal rebel group that is
part of the Free Syrian Army, told Reuters one of the targets was
his group's base in Idlib province, struck by about 20 missiles in
two separate raids. His fighters had been trained by the CIA in
Qatar and Saudi Arabia, part of a program Washington says is aimed
at supporting groups that oppose both Islamic State and Assad.
"Russia is challenging everyone and saying there is no alternative
to Bashar," Haj Ali said. He said the Russian jets had been
identified by members of his group who once served as Syrian air
force pilots.
The group is one of at least three foreign-backed FSA rebel factions
to say they had been hit by the Russians in the last two days.
At the United Nations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a
news conference Moscow was targeting Islamic State. He did not
specifically deny that Russian planes had attacked Free Syrian Army
facilities but said Russia did not view it as a terrorist group and
viewed it as part of a political solution in Syria.
The aim is to help the Syrian armed forces "in their weak spots",
said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook described Thursday's military talks as
"cordial and professional." During the talks, Elissa Slotkin, an
acting assistant U.S. secretary of defense, "noted U.S. concern that
areas targeted by Russia so far were not ISIL strongholds." Cook
said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
The Pentagon said it would not share U.S. intelligence with Russia
and suggested the talks included ideas to increase safety, such as
agreeing on radio frequencies for distress calls and a common
language for communications.
U.S. Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, and a frequent Obama critic, questioned the
logic of talks on how to keep U.S. and Russian militaries apart,
known in military parlance as "deconfliction."
“Unfortunately, it appears ‘deconfliction’ is merely an Orwellian
euphemism for this administration’s acceptance of Russia’s expanded
role in Syria, and as a consequence, for Assad’s continued
brutalization of the Syrian people,” McCain said.
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SAME ENEMIES, DIFFERENT FRIENDS
Russia's decision to join the war with air strikes on behalf of
Assad, as well as the increased military involvement of Iran, could
mark a turning point in a conflict that has drawn in most of the
world's military powers.
With the United States leading an alliance waging its own air war
against Islamic State, the Cold War superpower foes, Washington and
Moscow, are now engaged in combat over the same country for the
first time since World War Two.
They say they have the same enemies - the Islamic State group of
Sunni Muslim militants who have proclaimed a caliphate across
eastern Syria and northern Iraq.
But they also have different friends, and sharply opposing views of
how to resolve the 4-year-old Syrian civil war, which has killed
more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their
homes.
Washington and its allies oppose both Islamic State and Assad,
believing he must leave power in any peace settlement.
Washington says a central part of its strategy is building
"moderate" insurgents to fight Islamic State, although so far it has
struggled to find many fighters to accept its training.
Moscow supports the Syrian president and believes his government
should be the centerpiece of international efforts to fight the
extremist groups.
It appears to be using the common campaign against Islamic State as
a pretext to strike against groups supported by Washington and its
allies, as a way of defending a Damascus government with which
Moscow has been allied since the Cold War.
The Russian strikes represent a bold move by President Vladimir
Putin to assert influence beyond his own neighborhood. It is the
first time Moscow has ordered its forces into combat outside the
frontiers of the former Soviet Union since its disastrous
Afghanistan campaign in the 1980s.
The Russian and Iranian interventions in support of Assad come at a
time when momentum in the conflict had swung against his government
and seem aimed at reversing insurgent gains.
Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi of neighboring Iraq, where Washington
is also leading an air war against Islamic State while Iran aids
government forces on the ground, said he would be open to Russian
strikes as well.
A Syrian military source said on Thursday that Russian military
support would bring a "big change" in the course of the conflict,
particularly through advanced surveillance capabilities that could
pinpoint insurgent targets.
Putin's gamble of going to war in Syria comes a year after he defied
the West to annex Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, drawing U.S. and EU
economic sanctions while igniting a wave of popular nationalist
support at home.
(Reporting by Laila Bassam, Sylvia Westall and Tom Perry in Beirut,
Andrew Osborn and Lidia Kelly in Moscow, and Yeganeh Torbati, Warren
Strobel and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Peter Graff;
Editing by Giles Elgood, Howard Goller and Ken Wills)
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