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 The United States is using Syrian air space to lead a campaign of
air strikes against Islamic State, and a greater Russian presence
raises the prospect of the Cold War superpower foes encountering
each other on the battlefield.
Both Moscow and Washington say their enemy is Islamic State, whose
Islamist fighters control large parts of Syria and Iraq. But Russia
supports the government of Assad in Syria, while the United States
says his presence makes the situation worse.
In recent days, U.S. officials have described what they say is an
increase of Russian equipment and manpower.
President Barack Obama said this would not change U.S. strategy in
countering Islamic State fighters, which includes U.S. planes
leading an international coalition in airstrikes in Syria.
"But we are going to be engaging Russia to let them know that you
can't continue to double-down on a strategy that is doomed to
failure," he said at an event with military service members during a
visit to Maryland.
In the latest reports, two Western officials and a Russian source
told Reuters Moscow is sending advanced SA-22 anti-aircraft missiles
to Syria. The system would be operated by Russian troops, rather
than Syrians, the Western officials said.
U.S. officials in Washington also said they believed about 200
Russian naval infantry forces were now stationed at an airfield near
the Syrian city of Latakia, an Assad stronghold, and that the number
had increased in recent days.
PREPARING SYRIAN AIRFIELD
One official estimated that the majority of the forces were involved
in preparing the airfield for future use.
Lebanese sources have told Reuters that at least some Russian troops
are now engaged in combat operations in support of Assad's forces.
Moscow has declined to comment on those reports.
Obama said Russia would have to start using diplomacy rather than
force to counter the influence of Islamic State militants. He said
the group posed more of a threat to Russia than to the United States
because of the country's large Muslim population.
 At a news conference in Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
Russia was sending equipment to help Assad fight Islamic State.
Russian servicemen were in Syria, he said, primarily to help service
that equipment and teach Syrian soldiers how to use it.
Russian naval exercises in the eastern Mediterranean were
long-planned and in accordance with international law, he said.
A source close to the Russian navy told Reuters a squadron of five
Russian ships equipped with guided missiles had set off to conduct
maneuvers in Syrian waters.
"They will train to repulse an attack from the air and to defend the
coast, which means firing artillery and testing short-range air
defense systems, " the source said, adding that the exercise had
been agreed with the Syrian government.
Russia has given notice of several rounds of navy drills with rocket
firing tests in the sea off Syria from Sept. 8 to Oct. 7, according
to Cypriot aviation authorities and international governmental
databases of notices for airmen. Some flight paths will be
temporarily closed.
UNDESIRED, UNINTENDED
Lavrov blamed Washington for cutting off direct military-to-military
communication between Russia and NATO after the crisis in Ukraine
last year. Such contacts were "important for the avoidance of
undesired, unintended incidents", Lavrov said.
"We are always in favor of military people talking to each other in
a professional way. They understand each other very well," Lavrov
said. "If, as (U.S. Secretary of State) John Kerry has said many
times, the United States wants those channels frozen, then be our
guest."
U.S. officials say they do not know what Moscow's intentions are in
Syria. Momentum in Syria's 4-year-old civil war has been shifting
against Assad's government, which has suffered battlefield setbacks
this year at the hands of an array of insurgent groups.
Moscow, an ally of Damascus since the Cold War, maintains its only
Mediterranean naval base at Tartous on the Syrian coast, and
defending it would be a strategic aim.
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In recent months NATO-member Turkey has also raised the prospect of
outside powers playing a greater role in Syria, proposing a "safe
zone" near its border, kept free of both Islamic State and
government troops.
COMMON ENEMY
The war has killed 250,000 people and driven half of Syria's 23
million people from their homes. Some have traveled to European
countries, creating a refugee crisis there.
The dispatch of advanced anti-aircraft missiles like the SA-22,
which the two Western officials said were on their way but had not
yet arrived, would appear to undermine Moscow's argument that its
sole aim is to help Damascus fight Islamic State: the militants and
other insurgents possess no aircraft.
"This system is the advanced version used by Russia and it's meant
to be operated by Russians in Syria," said one of the Western
sources, a diplomat briefed on intelligence assessments.
A Russian source close to the navy said the delivery would not be
the first time Moscow had sent the SA-22, known as Pantsir-S1 in
Russian, to Syria. The system had been sent in 2013, the source
said. "There are plans now to send a new set."
However, the Western diplomat said the new missiles would be more
advanced than those deployed in the past.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said it was too early to
judge what Russia's motivations were in Syria, but "adding war to
war" would not help resolve the conflict.
"If it's about defending the base in Tartous why not? But if it's
to enter the conflict...." he said, without finishing the thought.
BARGAINING POWER
Diplomats in Moscow say the Kremlin is happy for the West to believe
it is building up its military in Syria, calculating that this will
give it more bargaining power in any peace talks.
Western and Arab countries have backed demands from the Syrian
opposition that Assad must leave power under any negotiated
settlement. Assad has refused to go, and all diplomatic efforts at a
solution so far have collapsed.
Assad’s supporters have taken encouragement this week from an
apparent shift in tone from some European states.
Britain, one of Assad’s staunchest Western opponents, said it could
accept him staying in place for a transition period if it helped
resolve the conflict.
France said on Monday he must leave power “at some point or
another”. Smaller countries went further, with Austria saying Assad
must be involved in the fight against Islamic State and Spain saying
negotiations with him were needed to end the war.
The Syrian pro-government newspaper al-Watan saw Britain’s position
as “a new sign of the changes in Western positions that started with
Madrid and Austria”.
(Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Gabriela Baczynska and Phil
Stewart. Writing by Peter Graff.; Editing by Giles Elgood, David
Storey and Ken Wills)
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