Category Archives: Russia

Russia expands its military presence in Syria, satellite photos show

The Wall Street Journal reports: Russian forces appear to be expanding their military presence in Syria through the development of two additional bases, according to new satellite imagery viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The expansion near Syria’s Mediterranean coast is the latest sign Russia is preparing to inject its military forces into the country’s chaotic civil war, creating new challenges for the U.S.-led coalition trying to force President Bashar al-Assad from power and defeat Islamic State militants.

Until recently, the Russian buildup in Syria was largely focused on an air base south of the port city of Latakia. Moscow has shipped more than two dozen combat aircraft to the airfield, where Russian surveillance drones have started flying, according to U.S. defense officials. Russia has also sent tanks, air-defense systems, armored-personnel carriers and enough housing for 2,000 people, officials have said.

Now, satellite images from IHS Jane’s, a defense-intelligence provider, show an additional, previously undisclosed, Russian military expansion.

The images from mid-September show development of a weapons depot and military facility north of Latakia, suggesting that Russia is preparing to place troops in both places, according to Robert Munks, editor of IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Russia has sharply increased the number of combat aircraft at an air base near Latakia, Syria, giving its forces a new ability to strike targets on the ground in the war-stricken country.

Over the weekend, Russia deployed a dozen Su-24 Fencer and a dozen Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack planes, bringing to 28 the number of warplanes at the base, a senior United States official said on Monday. Until the weekend, the only combat planes there had been four Flanker air-to-air fighters.

The deployment of some of Russia’s most advanced ground attack planes and fighter jets as well as multiple air defense systems at the base near the ancestral home of President Bashar al-Assad appears to leave little doubt about Moscow’s goal to establish a military outpost in the Middle East. The planes are protected by at least two or possibly three SA-22 surface-to-air, antiaircraft systems, and unarmed Predator-like surveillance drones are being used to fly reconnaissance missions.

“With competent pilots and with an effective command and control process, the addition of these aircraft could prove very effective depending on the desired objectives for their use,” said David A. Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who planned the American air campaigns in 2001 in Afghanistan and in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

In addition, a total of 15 Russian Hip transport and Hind attack helicopters are also now stationed at the base, doubling the number of those aircraft from last week, the American official said. For use in possible ground attacks, the Russians now also have nine T-90 tanks and more than 500 marines, up from more than 200 last week. [Continue reading…]

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Putin claims Russian intervention in Syria has limited the flood of refugees

The New York Times reports: President Vladimir V. Putin on Tuesday forcefully defended Russia’s military assistance to Syria, describing it as aid for a government fighting “terrorist aggression” and saying the migrant crisis in Europe would be far worse without it.

The United States has expressed concern about a recent Russian airlift to Syria that is believed to have included military hardware and soldiers.

“If Russia had not supported Syria, the situation in this country would have been worse than in Libya,” Mr. Putin said, and the flood of refugees would have been even higher.” [Continue reading…]

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Is Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow an Israeli jab at Washington?

Haaretz reports: The immediate reason for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Moscow on Monday is increased Russian military involvement in Syria.

On Sunday, the first satellite photos were released from the air base that Russia is building on the Alawite strip of coast in northern Syria near Latakia. Netanyahu, who in an unusual step is taking Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, with him and, at the last minute, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, will devote much of his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to preventing direct friction between Israel and Russia in the north.

The aircraft photographed in northern Syria are Sukhoi 27s. Their main mission, according to experts on the Russian Air Force, is to ensure aerial superiority, not bombardment. That underscores the assessment that Russia has not sent its forces to the region just to fight Islamic State, which is what Russia stresses in justifying its new military deployment, but that Moscow wants to establish a more significant presence. Anti-aircraft batteries will apparently also be deployed to protect the base, as well as a small number of ground forces, tanks, APCs, and a special low-profile unit, in what is reminiscent of Russia’s conduct in the war in Ukraine.

But beyond reducing the risk of an unwanted clash between Israeli and Russian fighter jets over Syria or Lebanon, it seems that the visit should be seen in a wider context of tensions between Moscow and Washington.

And although Netanyahu only last week said “commentators” were wrong when they warned of a collapse of ties between Israel and the United States in light of the Iran nuclear deal, Netanyahu’s current visit to Moscow could be seen as an Israeli jab at Washington. The visit seems to reflect Netanyahu’s lack of faith in the ability or the intent of the United States to protect Israel’s security interests.

The visit cannot be considered good news in Washington, which led a campaign of condemnation and sanctions against Moscow over its involvement in the war in Ukraine last summer. (Israel did not take a position on that conflict and was duly rewarded by Russia which issued a moderate response to Israel’s actions in the war on Gaza shortly thereafter.) [Continue reading…]

Haaretz reports: Russia’s stationing in Syria of the Su-27, which as an air-superiority fighter is designed to seize control of enemy airspace in order to establish air supremacy, rather than ground-attack aircraft reinforces fears in the West and in Israel that Russia’s real goal is not to fight ISIS but rather to protect the Syrian regime, in concert with Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

Some sources have said the planes were the Sukhoi Su-30 model, which are better suited to long-range missions and air-to-ground attacks than the Su-27. Even if that’s the case, they are not the best choice if the goal is to attack mobile targets such as those of the Islamic State organization in Syria.

The Su-27 will presumably not operate against Islamic State, which has no air force of its own, and would instead be used to create a defensive aerial umbrella over western Syria that would prevent, or at least significantly obstruct, the operation of other air forces in the area.

If the United States or another country should in the future want to strike Syrian regime forces from the air, that would lead to a direct conflict with Russia. It would also limit the freedom of action of U.S. and other air forces in attacking ISIS targets in Syria. [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: The Syrian military has recently started using new types of air and ground weapons supplied by Russia, a Syrian military source told Reuters on Thursday, underlining growing Russian support for Damascus that is alarming the United States.

“The weapons are highly effective and very accurate, and hit targets precisely,” the source said in response to a question about Russian support. “We can say they are all types of weapons, be it air or ground.” [Continue reading…]

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Russia’s escalating military intervention in Syria

As more Russian aircraft, tanks, artillery and troops arrive near the Syrian port city of Latakia, McClatchy reports: The buildup is Moscow’s first major military operation outside of the former Soviet Union since the 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan. As such, it represents a dangerous gamble for Putin because his intervention to bolster embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad offers a powerful incentive to Syrian rebel groups to collaborate in attacking the growing Russian military presence.

“A challenge for Russia is (that) maintaining a presence on the ground may require a robust force that could come in direct combat with various forces in the region,” said a U.S. intelligence official, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

Stephen Blank, a former Russian expert with the Army War College who is now with the American Foreign Policy Council, a policy institute, said that the longer the Russian force is on the ground, the greater the chance that Syria “could become a quagmire” for Putin.

“The Russians think they can keep their intervention limited, but I doubt it the longer it goes on,” said Blank.

His warning was reinforced by a vow by the new head of Ahrar al Sham, the largest of the Sunni Muslim groups fighting to topple Assad, to target the Russian troops.

“We owe it to you to restore freedom to Syria after the invasion of the rejectionists from all corners of the Earth,” said Abu Yahya al Hamwi in a speech recorded on a video delivered to supporters somewhere in Turkey and posted on the Internet. “Today they are bolstered by their allies, the Russians, and the fate of this invasion shall be defeated.”

“Rejectionists” is a derogatory term that Sunni extremists use for Shiite Muslims. In citing it, Hamwi was referring to military advisers from Shiite-dominated Iran and Shiites from Afghanistan and Pakistan fighting on behalf of Assad, who is an Alawite, a Shiite offshoot that dominates the Syrian regime.

Ahrar al Sham, estimated to have 35,000 fighters, is the largest component of the Islamic Front, a coalition of rebel groups that recently cooperated with al Qaida’s Syrian arm, the Nusra Front, in conquering northern Idlib province, raising the possibility that they could launch joint operations against the Russians.

Russia has long supported Assad with military advisers and weaponry. But the Russian buildup at an airfield near Assad’s stronghold of Latakia is a huge escalation in the effort to prop up the Syrian leader, who’s suffered a string of losses and manpower shortages in fighting that has killed an estimated 250,000 people and uprooted half the population of 23 million. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Syria, and the migrant crisis it has spawned, has been a major focus of Mr. Kerry’s trip to Europe. After a meeting Saturday morning with Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, Mr. Kerry said that it was vital to pursue a diplomatic solution to the crisis but that Moscow was not putting enough pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to make him negotiate seriously.

“We need to get to the negotiation,” Mr. Kerry said at a joint news conference with Mr. Hammond. “That’s what we’re looking for, and we hope Russia and Iran, other countries with influence, will help to bring that about, because that’s what’s preventing this crisis from ending.”

“Right now, Assad has refused to have a serious discussion,” Mr. Kerry added, “and Russia has refused to help bring him to the table in order to do that.”

Mr. Hammond and Mr. Kerry each emphasized that Mr. Assad could not remain in power if there was to be a durable solution to the conflict, but they said that the timing of his departure during a political transition in Syria would be a matter of negotiation.

“It doesn’t have to be on Day 1 or Month 1,” Mr. Kerry said. “There is a process by which all the parties have to come together and reach an understanding of how this can best be achieved.”

“I just know that the people of Syria have already spoken with their feet,” Mr. Kerry added. “They’re leaving Syria.” [Continue reading…]

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Did the West ignore a Russian offer for Assad to step down as president?

A recent report on a 2012 overture from Russia, “has been latched on to by various commentators to suggest that the West’s failure to respond to this initiative is responsible for the subsequent humanitarian crisis that unfolded in Syria,” writes Brian Slocock: Even the Guardian’s usually reliable Julian Borger (co-author of the article) seems to gives credence this notion, reciting the terrible events that followed February 2012. Borger at least (somewhat contradictorily) notes that “Officially, Russia has staunchly backed Assad through the four-and-half-year Syrian war, insisting that his removal cannot be part of any peace settlement.” And notes that Kofi Anan’s 2012 peace plan of “soon fell apart over differences on whether Assad should step down.” (i.e. over Russia’s refusal to consider Asad’s removal.)

Other commentators, ranging from the right-wing Daily Mail to American left-wing “policy analyst” Phyllis Bennis, have been more explicit in connecting these events , arguing that the current wave of refugees fleeing Asad’s barrel bombs could have been avoided if the west had listened to Vitaly Churkin in February 2012.

Here is Bennis’s sweeping claim (rather undermined by the welter of conditionals she feels obliged to introduce into her argument):

But what we now see very visibly with these new revelations from Martti Ahtisaari is how in the case of the rise of ISIS … and the war in Syria which is at the root of the rise of ISIS, the refusal of the United States and its allies to take seriously the possibility of negotiating an end to that conflict before it ever reached this horrific level, to negotiate the stepping down, maybe the stepping down, potentially the stepping down, possibly, of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, would have dramatically changed the situation there.

So let’s try and evaluate this story by looking at exactly what was happening on the diplomatic front with respect to Syria at this point in time. [Continue reading…]

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Thousands of Russians fighting for ISIS, says security service

Newsweek reports: Russia’s federal security services (FSB) estimate that around 2,500 Russian nationals have joined the ranks of Islamist terror organisation ISIS, state TV channel Perviy Kanal reported on Friday.

Speaking to reporters at a summit attended by Russian anti-terrorism officials and officials from other member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, FSB Deputy Chief Sergey Smirnov said some of Russia’s neighbours also face urgent problems in terms of jihadist recruitment.

He said that according to FSB data, 3,000 would-be jihadis from across the central Asian region had joined ISIS. Smirnov did not clarify what role these recruits play, and it did not specify if they were actively involved in fighting alongside ISIS. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. and Russia in talks on how to fight in Syria without fighting each other

Reuters reports: U.S. and Russian defense chiefs spoke for the first time in over a year on Friday, breaking their silence to discuss the crisis in Syria as Moscow’s increasing military buildup there raised the prospect of coordination between the former Cold War foes.

The Pentagon said the call lasted about 50 minutes and included an agreement for further U.S.-Russian talks about ways to keep their respective militaries out of each other’s way, something known as “deconfliction” in military parlance.

The United States fiercely opposes Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Pentagon last year cut off high-level military talks with Moscow after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in Ukraine.

But Russia’s buildup at Syria’s Latakia airbase raises the possibility of simultaneous U.S. and Russian air combat missions in Syrian airspace.

Heavy Russian equipment such as tanks and helicopters, as well as naval infantry forces, have recently been moved to Latakia, an Assad stronghold, U.S. officials say. [Continue reading…]

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Russian journalist Oleg Kashin knows who tried to kill him

The Washington Post reports: On Nov. 6, 2010, two men beat a prominent Russian journalist, Oleg Kashin, within an inch of his life. He was hit 56 times in the head, arms and legs with a steel pipe, left hospitalized in an induced coma with a fractured skull, and had one finger partially amputated. He survived and eventually recovered.

The brutal attack in a downtown Moscow courtyard shocked Russian society. Then-President Dmitry Medvedev vowed the killers would be found, but after nearly five years, the case remained unsolved, similar to attacks against other journalists here. [Continue reading…]

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Russia’s advance into Syria

Oryx Blog reports: The past few days have seen a steep increase of evidence revealing the true extent of direct military involvement by the Russian military on the ground in Syria. The sighting of recently delivered Russian UAVs and Russian BTR-82A infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) in addition to sound fragments confirming Russian military personnel directly participated in one of regime’s offensives in the Lattakia Governorate all proved Russia was deeper involved in the Syrian Civil War than many previously thought.

The true extent of Russia’s commitment in aiding the regime was further revealed by the frequent transits of a large number of Russian landing ships bound for Syria through the strait of Bosphorus along with at least fifteen flights made by Russian Air Force An-124s strategic airlifters to Lattakia. These ships and aircraft brought large numbers of vehicles, equipment and personnel to Syria. In order to house the Russian contingent, Hmeemeem/Bassel al-Assad IAP has been turned into a Russian military base and is currently being reconstructed to allow the deployment of land and air assets.

Newly published images showing a Russian R-166-0.5 (ultra) high-frequency signals (HF/VHF) vehicle driving through Syria’s coastal region now leaves little to no doubt on Russia’s intentions in Syria. The R-166-0.5 provides jam-resistant voice and data communications over a long range, enabling Russian troops to communicate with their bases in the coastal strongholds of Tartus and Lattakia while operating far inland. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. training helped mold top ISIS military commander

McClatchy reports: The 15 Chechens looking to cross the border from Turkey to Syria didn’t strike Abdullah as particularly important or unusual.

It was early summer in 2012, and as a smuggler based in the Turkish border town of Killis, Abdullah, who’d fled his home village in Syria because of fighting on the outskirts of Aleppo, was used to secretive groups of foreigners – journalists, aid workers and many recently aspiring jihadists – hiring him to cross Turkish military lines at the border while avoiding what was then still a significant Syrian government presence in northern Syrian.

“In 2012, everyone was coming to Syria and we had too much work leading all kinds of people across the border,” he explained over lunch in Killis, a Turkish town just a few miles from the rebel-held Syrian city of Azzaz. “A lot were Muslims who had come to support the revolution against Bashar Assad from every country. So many from Europe, Russia, Germany, France. . . .”

The 15 men had reached Abdullah through a network of contacts that were funneling new fighters to northern Syria, and Abdullah recalled they said they were going to Syria to assist in the fight against Assad. They were quiet, disciplined and for the most part spoke only a bit of crude formal Arabic.

Only later did Abdullah realize that the network that funneled these men to him was the beginnings of the Islamic State, and that one of the 15 would turn out to be the most important non-Arab figure in the Islamic State hierarchy, a former American-trained noncommissioned officer in the special forces of the nation of Georgia, who’d led his men heroically during the 2008 Russian invasion of his homeland.

Abu Omar al Shishani, as he’s now known, had been born Tarkhan Batirashvili 27 years earlier in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, a tiny enclave of ethnic Chechens, known locally as Kists, whose roughly 10,000 residents represent virtually all of the Muslims in predominantly Orthodox Christian Georgia.

But analysts of extremist groups said Batirashvili’s impact has been far greater than the small numbers of Muslims in Georgia would suggest. Since he swore allegiance to the Islamic State in 2013, thousands of Muslims from the Caucasus have flocked to Syria to join the extremist cause. [Continue reading…]

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The implications of Russia’s military buildup in Syria

Jeffrey White writes: Russia appears to have begun a significant, direct military intervention in Syria. Extensive reporting, including some attributed to U.S. government and intelligence sources, indicates that Russia is building a joint air-ground expeditionary force in Latakia and Tartus provinces along the northwestern coast, far surpassing the scope of its longstanding advisory and arms-supply role. If this force develops along the reported lines, it could be a game-changer in the war. It could also have major implications for Israel’s ability to conduct air operations over western Syria and Lebanon, and for U.S./coalition operations against the “Islamic State”/ISIS and other terrorist organizations in Syria.

Moreover, if the Russian presence becomes established, it will be increasingly difficult to remove. As in Crimea and Ukraine, the United States — much less any other country — seems unlikely to challenge Russian forces militarily. And while these forces will probably suffer casualties and could become bogged down in Syria, Moscow may well accept that as the cost of keeping the Assad regime in power and frustrating Washington.

Russia’s moves in Syria are seemingly based on a larger geopolitical strategy that counts on little interference from the United States and its coalition allies. The intervention appears to be a deliberate strategic effort to support the regime with direct military force, most likely spurred by the assessment that Bashar al-Assad’s forces are failing and that the support provided by Hezbollah and Iran is inadequate. The decision was likely made in coordination with Tehran, which is reportedly boosting its own military assistance to the regime. Other probable goals include safeguarding the regime’s western heartland, protecting and expanding Russian naval and air access to Syria, and increasing Moscow’s overall influence on the situation. More broadly, Russia appears committed to exercising its influence in the Middle East, and Syria provides an opportunity.

In some ways, the deployment looks like Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea: ambiguous early moves cloaked by misleading leadership statements on their purpose, accompanied by an incremental buildup of forces using cover provided by preexisting Russian activities and facilities in Syria. [Continue reading…]

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West ‘ignored Russian offer in 2012 to have Syria’s Assad step aside,’ says former Finnish president

The Guardian reports: Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time.

Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal. Since it was made, in 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions uprooted, causing the world’s gravest refugee crisis since the second world war.

Ahtisaari held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in February 2012. He said that during those discussions, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Assad to cede power at some point after peace talks had started between the regime and the opposition.

But he said that the US, Britain and France were so convinced that the Syrian dictator was about to fall, they ignored the proposal. [Continue reading…]

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Russian moves in Syria widen role in Mideast

The New York Times reports: Russia has sent some of its most modern battle tanks to a new air base in Syria in what American officials said Monday was part of an escalating buildup that could give Moscow its most significant military foothold in the Middle East in decades.

Pentagon officials said that the Russian weapons and equipment that had arrived suggested that the Kremlin’s plan is to turn the airfield south of Latakia in western Syria into a major hub that could be used to bring in military supplies for the government of President Bashar al-Assad. It might also serve as a staging area for airstrikes in support of Syrian government forces.

“We have seen movement of people and things that would suggest the air base south of Latakia could be used as a forward air operating base,” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.

American military specialists analyzing satellite photographs and other information said Russia had about half a dozen T-90 tanks, 15 howitzers, 35 armored personnel carriers, 200 marines and housing for as many as 1,500 personnel at the airfield near the Assad family’s ancestral home. And more is on the way as Russia appears to be trying to increase its influence in Syria amid the civil strife there, the officials said. [Continue reading…]

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Russian flights over Iraq and Iran escalate tension with U.S.

The New York Times reports: Russia is using an air corridor over Iraq and Iran to fly military equipment and personnel to a new air hub in Syria, openly defying American efforts to block the shipments and significantly increasing tensions with Washington.

American officials disclosed Sunday that at least seven giant Russian Condor transport planes had taken off from a base in southern Russia during the past week to ferry equipment to Syria, all passing through Iranian and Iraqi airspace.

Their destination was an airfield south of Latakia, Syria, which could become the most significant new Russian military foothold in the Middle East in decades, American officials said. [Continue reading…]

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Former Russian rebels trade war in Ukraine for posh life in Moscow

The Washington Post reports: There was a time when the arrival of Alexander Borodai and his posse of camouflaged gunmen could clear out a restaurant in just minutes.

But that was in Donetsk, Ukraine, in 2014, where Borodai was prime minister of a pro­Russian separatist government. Now, he is back in his native Moscow and, as he tells it, back to his old day job as a public relations consultant.

“When you are not on television, people start to forget what you look like,” he said, sinking into a cream­colored sofa in a tony Moscow restaurant for an interview. “And thank God for that. It was hard to go out on the street at first.”

It is an unlikely, perhaps unbelievable, transformation for the most prominent Russian citizen in the war in Ukraine and the possible target of a Dutch investigation into the missile attack on a Malaysian airliner in July last year that killed 298 people. [Continue reading…]

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Russian troops said to join combat in Syria

Reuters reports: Russian forces have begun participating in military operations in Syria in support of government troops, three Lebanese sources familiar with the political and military situation there said on Wednesday.

The sources, speaking to Reuters on condition they not be identified, gave the most forthright account yet from the region of what the United States fears is a deepening Russian military role in Syria’s civil war, though one of the Lebanese sources said the number of Russians involved so far was small.

U.S. officials said Russia sent two tank landing ships and additional cargo aircraft to Syria in the past day or so and deployed a small number of naval infantry forces.

The U.S. officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the intent of Russia’s military moves in Syria was unclear. One suggested the focus may be on preparing an airfield near the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. [Continue reading…]

Josh Rogin writes: The State Department had already begun pushing back against the Russian moves, for example by asking Bulgaria and Greece to deny overflight permissions to Syria-bound Russian transport planes. But the president didn’t know about these moves in advance, two officials said, and when he found out, he was upset with the department for not having a more complete and vetted process to respond to the crisis. A senior administration official said Tuesday evening that the White House, the State Department and other departments had coordinated to oppose actions that would add to Assad’s leverage.

For some in the White House, the priority is to enlist more countries to fight against the Islamic State, and they fear making the relationship with Russia any more heated. They are seriously considering accepting the Russian buildup as a fait accompli, and then working with Moscow to coordinate U.S. and Russian strikes in Northern Syria, where the U.S.-led coalition operates every day.

For many in the Obama administration, especially those who work on Syria, the idea of acquiescing to Russian participation in the fighting is akin to admitting that the drive to oust Assad has failed. Plus, they fear Russia will attack Syrian opposition groups that are fighting against Assad, using the war against the Islamic State as a cover.

“The Russians’ intentions are to keep Assad in power, not to fight ISIL,” one administration official said. “They’ve shown their cards now.” [Continue reading…]

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Putin moves troops from Ukraine to Syria

Michael Weiss and Ben Nimmo report: Reuters confirmed Wednesday what The Daily Beast first reported last week — not only have Russian troops been deployed to Syria but they are indeed taking part in active combat operations, although against which of the manifold enemies of the Assad regime remains unclear.

U.S. government sources told the news agency that two tank landing ships, aircraft and naval infantry forces have arrived in Syria in the past 24 hours, with the largest buildup occurring in Latakia, the northwest coastal province — ancestral home of the Assad family — which Islamist rebels have been fiercely contesting of late. Russia, Reuters confirmed, is constructing a new airfield in Latakia, which would represents its second military installation in Syria after its decades-old naval supply base in Tartus, also its only warm-water port since the end of the Soviet Union.

One U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast that Moscow likely taken the decision to directly intervene in the four-and-a-half-year civil war following opposition gains, contrary to what Vladimir Putin told reporters last week—that any such talk was “premature.” [Continue reading…]

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U.S. moves to block Russian military buildup in Syria

The New York Times reports: The United States on Tuesday moved to head off preparations for a suspected Russian military buildup in Syria as Bulgaria agreed to an appeal from the Obama administration to shut its airspace to Russian transport planes. The planes’ destination was the Syrian port city of Latakia.

The administration has also asked Greece to close its airspace to the Russian flights, Greek and American officials said, but Greece has not publicly responded to the request.

The apparent Russian military preparations and the Obama administration’s attempt to block them have escalated long-running tensions between the White House and the Kremlin. Although the United States and Russia agree that the Islamic State is a threat, the new dispute shows that they remain far apart on how best to combat the militant group and on the political future of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria — divisions that are likely to be on display when President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin speak to the United Nations General Assembly this month. [Continue reading…]

AFP reports: At least three Russian military transport planes have landed in Syria in recent days, US officials said Tuesday, as Washington worries about the sort of assistance Moscow is providing to Damascus.

The aircraft have landed at the airport in Latakia on Syria’s Mediterranean coast over the past several days, US officials told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Two of the aircraft were giant Antonov-124 Condor planes and a third was a passenger flight, one of the officials said.

The Russians have installed modular housing units — enough for “hundreds” of people — at the airport, as well as portable air traffic control equipment, the official noted. [Continue reading…]

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