Syrian Revolution News & Discussions

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U.S. military denies defection of Syria rebels

Seventy five Syrian rebels trained by the United States and its allies to fight ISIS have entered northern Syria. (File photo: AP)

By AFP, Washington
Wednesday, 23 September 2015

U.S. military officials on Wednesday denied reports that the latest batch of American-trained Syrian rebels had defected to an Al-Qaeda affiliate.

The Pentagon is under intense scrutiny over its “train-and-equip” program in which moderate Syrian rebels are given instruction and weapons to fight Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) jihadists in the war-torn country.

Several news and social media reports said the newest batch of about 70 rebels to graduate from the program -- who were sent back to Syria last weekend -- had defected to Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front, then handed over their weapons.

“It’s patently false that there have been defections or weapons turned over... we believe the claims to those effect to be untrue,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters.

The program to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS jihadists originally aimed to ready around 5,400 vetted fighters a year for three years.

But the pricey endeavor, which cost $500 million, got off to a disastrous start.

The first graduates, who made up a group of 54 fighters, were attacked by Al-Nusra in July and the Pentagon isn’t sure what happened to them all. At least one was killed.

A second setback would cause further embarrassment for America, but Davis stressed the new batch of fighters was not lost.

“We do have contact, we have communications with members of the group and our understanding from being in touch ... is that all are present and accounted for, as are their weapons,” Davis said.

The program has also been hamstrung by a lack of suitable recruits who are able to pass the U.S. screening process.

Last week, before the insertion of the new fighters, the U.S. general overseeing efforts against ISIS drew disbelief from senior lawmakers when he told them only “four or five” U.S.-trained rebels were on the ground fighting in Syria.

Last Update: Wednesday, 23 September 2015 KSA 21:38 - GMT 18:38
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/09/23/U-S-military-denies-defection-of-Syria-rebels-.html

 

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Warring sides in Syria reach deal on 2 villages, border town

Members of al Qaeda's Nusra Front stand in front of piled sandbags near the two Shi'ite Muslim towns of al-Foua and Kefraya in northwestern Syria, September 22, 2015. (Reuters)

By Reuters | Beirut, Geneva
Thursday, 24 September 2015

Warring sides in Syria have reached an agreement under U.N. supervision over the fate of two villages in the northwest and a town near the Lebanese border, sources familiar with the talks said on Thursday, as a ceasefire in the areas held.

The deal included the withdrawal of rebel fighters holed up in the mostly regime-held area near Lebanon, and the evacuation of civilians from two Shiite villages under rebel siege in Idlib province in northwest Syria, the sources said.

It would be implemented within six months, during which time there would be an extended ceasefire in the areas. Evacuation of wounded from both sides would begin on Friday.

Last Update: Thursday, 24 September 2015 KSA 19:59 - GMT 16:59
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/09/24/Warring-sides-in-Syria-reach-agreement-on-two-villages-border-town-sources-say.html

 

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Israeli and Russian deputy military chiefs to coordinate on Syria

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu take part in a joint news conference in the Kremlin in Moscow, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013. (AP)

By Reuters | Occupied Jerusalem
Thursday, 24 September 2015

An Israeli-Russian coordination team set up to prevent the countries accidentally trading fire in Syria will be headed by their deputy armed forces chiefs and will hold its first meeting by October 5, an Israeli military officer said on Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on Monday to set up the team as Moscow steps up military support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been losing ground to an Islamist-led insurgency.

Israel is worried the Russian deployment, which U.S. officials and regional sources say includes advanced anti-aircraft units and warplanes, risks pitting Russian forces against its own over Syria.

Israeli jets have occasionally struck in neighboring Syria to foil suspected handovers of sophisticated Russian- or Iranian-supplied arms to Assad’s guerrilla allies in Lebanon.

IN OPINION: Why Russia wants to echo the Cuban Missile Crisis in Syria

An Israeli military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the talks with Moscow would focus on aerial operations in Syria and “electromagnetic coordination.”

The latter appeared to refer to the sides agreeing not to scramble each other’s radio communications or radar-tracking systems, and devising ways of identifying each other’s forces ahead of any unintended confrontation in the heat of battle.

Israel and Russia will also coordinate on sea operations off Syria’s Mediterranean coast, where Moscow has a major naval base, the Israeli officer said.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said progress had been made in Russian-Israeli contacts over Syria, though he declined to confirm the coordinating team could meet soon.


“When it comes to communication channels and coordination of possible actions, yes, in fact, this topic was discussed and certain agreements and points during the meeting with Netanyahu were reached,” Peskov told reporters in a conference call.

Last Update: Thursday, 24 September 2015 KSA 15:03 - GMT 12:03
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/09/24/Israeli-Russian-deputy-military-chiefs-to-coordinate-on-Syria.html

 

[UAE]

Turkey changes its stance on Assad. @T-123456 @Sinan

 

[T-123456]

Turkey changes its stance on Assad. @T-123456 @Sinan

What do you expect from a ''shapeshifter(Erdogan)'',im sure Putin ''convinced'' him to do so.

 

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British FM: Russia’s build-up in Syria strengthens Assad

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Assad "can't be part of Syria's future." (File: AP)

By Reuters, AFP
Friday, 25 September 2015

Britain has said Russia’s military build-up in Syria reinforces President Bashar al-Assad and increases Moscow’s “moral responsibility in the crimes committed by the regime.”

“Russia’s military build-up complicates the situation,” Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told the French daily Le Monde in an interview after talks with his French and German counterparts in Paris on Thursday night.

“Assad must go, he can’t be part of Syria’s future,” Hammond added, according to Le Monde’s French translation. “If we reach a deal on a transition authority and Assad is part of it, then it will be necessary to talk with him in his capacity as an actor in this process.”

In remarks released on Thursday, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said the only way to end the war in Syria is to support its existing government in the fight against terrorism.

In an interview with CBS News “60 Minutes,” the Russia leader repeated his view that only the Syrian people can decide if and when to replace Assad.

Russia has deployed a force equipped with attack jets, helicopters and armored vehicles to a Syrian airbase.

CBS interviewer Charlie Rose suggested that this Russian military intervention was designed to “rescue” Assad, and Putin replied: “Well, you’re right.”

“And it’s my deep belief that any actions to the contrary -- in order to destroy the legitimate government -- will create a situation which you can witness now in the other countries of the region or in other regions, for instance in Libya, where all the state institutions are disintegrated,” he said.

“We see a similar situation in Iraq,” he added.

“And there is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures and rendering them help in fighting terrorism, but at the same time urging them to engage in positive dialogue with the rational opposition and conduct reform.”

Next week Putin is to meet U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, but his latest comments only underline the gulf between the two leaders.

Last Update: Friday, 25 September 2015 KSA 17:39 - GMT 14:39
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/09/25/British-FM-Russia-s-build-up-in-Syria-strengthens-Assad.html

 

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New satellite images Russian airbase Basel al-Assad. Syria By Dylan Vosman - Sep 25, 2015 0 342 Share on Facebook Tweet on Twitter New satellite images Russian airbase Basel al-Assad. Syria.

New satellite images Russian airbase Basel al-Assad. Syria | Defence blog

 

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New photo of Russian Su-24 All-weather attack aircraft in Syria

 

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U.S. to make new diplomatic push on Syria

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will try to launch a new initiative for a political solution in Syria during meetings in New York in the next week. (File photo: Reuters)


By Lesley Wroughton and Phil Stewart | Reuters, Washington
Saturday, 26 September 2015

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will try to launch a new initiative for a political solution in Syria during meetings in New York in the next week, starting with talks with his Iranian counterpart on Saturday, U.S. and other Western officials said.

After backing a United Nations peace process that has failed to end the Syrian conflict, Kerry will test several ideas for a new approach during the United Nations General Assembly in New York in the coming days, the officials said.

The new approach - which officials stressed was in its infancy - could bring together Russia, a major ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia and countries such as Turkey and Qatar, which support Syrian opposition groups.

Russia’s sudden military build-up this month in support of Assad and a refugee crisis that has spilled over from the region into Europe have lent new urgency to attempts to resolve the Syria conflict.

Three years after the agreement of the Geneva Communiqué, a document setting out guidelines on Syria’s path to peace and a political transition, the U.N. process has failed to make headway in brokering an end to the war.

“And so you will get from Secretary Kerry an effort to find some formula that will get us back to a real substantial negotiation,” a senior U.S. official said.

U.S. Under-Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told reporters on Friday that Kerry would discuss Syria when he meets Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York.

Iran, which has said it is willing to sit down with rivals to discuss the crisis in Syria, is a staunch ally of Assad that backs the activities in Syria of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has given Assad vital support. U.S. officials acknowledge that to reach a political breakthrough in Syria, Iran will eventually have to play a role.

“We certainly know there are parallel interests” on Syria, Sherman said. “There are great political sensitivities in Iran about having these discussions, perhaps some limits, but it is important to engage to the extent we can.”

Kerry had not wanted to discuss Syria at the same time as the negotiations on an Iran nuclear deal, which concluded in July, because he didn’t want Tehran to think it could trade concessions on Syria, U.S. officials said.

The White House said on Thursday that President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin would discuss Syria when they meet in New York on Monday. Diplomats say the meeting is critical for a better understanding of Russia’s intentions.

One of the biggest obstacles, officials say, will be agreeing on the future of Assad.


Last Update: Saturday, 26 September 2015 KSA 09:54 - GMT 06:54
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/09/26/U-S-to-make-new-diplomatic-push-on-Syria-talk-to-Iran.html

 

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Hezbollah welcomes Russian buildup in Syria, says U.S. has failed

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/09/25/Hezbollah-welcomes-Russian-buildup-in-Syria-says-U-S-has-failed.html

 

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Putin has checkmated Obama in Syria
Saturday, 26 September 2015

A few months after Russian President Vladimir Putin brazenly annexed Crimea from Ukraine, President Barack Obama dismissed those analysts who hailed Putin’s land grab as a masterful strategic coup: “Three or four months ago, everybody in Washington was convinced that President Putin was a genius and he had outmaneuvered all of us, and he had bullied, and strategized his way into expanding Russian power,” Obama told National Public Radio. “Today, I’d sense that - at least outside of Russia - maybe some people are thinking what Putin did wasn’t so smart.”

Less than a year later, Obama finds himself forced to stop his silent treatment towards Putin, ending the suspension of military talks with the Russians and agreeing to rehabilitate his adversary by meeting him formally for the first time in two years at the United Nations. How did Putin, a ruthless practitioner of hard power, get the best of Obama? How did Putin, while presiding over a country afflicted with serious structural economic problems, buffeted by a recession caused by collapsing oil prices and subjected to Western sanctions and political isolation, manage to freeze the Ukraine crisis and put it in the background, while elevating the war in Syria as the most urgent crisis requiring American and European attention?

Perplexed in Washington
President Obama’s overall aimlessness in the Middle East, (with the exception of the Iran nuclear deal), his lack of seriousness and resolve in dealing with Syria’s savage wars, that are threatening the whole Eastern Mediterranean region and his unwillingness to challenge Iran’s destabilizing activities in Syria and Iraq and his inability to pursue a comprehensive regional strategy against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), gave Putin a historic opportunity to re-assert Russia’s influence in the region.

President Obama’s epic failure in Syria brought Putin out of the cold and now Putin is trying to bring Bashar Assad out of the cold and into a Russian led coalition to fight ISIS and other radical Islamists

Hisham Melhem
In recent months and weeks leaders of Arab Gulf states, Egypt, Israel and Turkey went on Eastern sojourns to Moscow to discuss the future of a region on the verge of a meltdown. In recent weeks the Obama administration found itself once again trying to guess Russia’s real intentions following its large military buildup in western Syria. The confusion of a perplexed administration was on full display.

Russia’s enlargement of a civilian airport in Latakia, its deployment of a contingent of Special Forces, drones, dozens of jet fighters, ground attack jets and attack helicopters, anti-aircraft missiles and tanks and facilities to house up to 2,000 military personnel was pronounced by Secretary Of State John Kerry, the eternally optimistic Doctor Pangloss of the Obama administration as defensive in nature. “It is the judgment of our military and most experts that the level and type (of weaponry) represents basically force protection.”

Later on, according to press reports U.S. Intelligence agencies informed the White House that Russian forces in Syria are on the verge of conducting military operations and the “jets are ready to strike at any moment. The equipment we’ve seen out there is not strictly defensive,” one U.S. official was quoted as saying. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter was more explicit warning that Russian airstrikes would be tantamount to “pouring gasoline on the civil war in Syria. That is certainly not productive from our point of view.”

The arsonist as the fireman
President Obama’s epic failure in Syria brought Putin out of the cold and now Putin is trying to bring Bashar Assad out of the cold and into a Russian led coalition to fight ISIS and other radical Islamists like Jabhat al-Nusra, with the promise to the Europeans that this new coalition will help alleviate their Syrian refugee crisis, the very crisis Putin had helped in creating by his considerable lethal support of the Assad regime. If there ever was a deal made in hell this would be it.

Putin the arsonist is fading away, and Putin the fireman is emerging as the indispensable leader to fight Islamist terrorism in Syria, and to save Western Europe from those refugees storming its ramparts and trying to enter its rapidly closing gates. Every Russian move and every Iranian decision in Syria scream loudly that the two states are as committed as ever to the survival of the Assad regime.

Before his arrival in New York, Putin confirmed his intentions to support Assad in an interview with Charlie Rose of the “60 Minutes” program on the CBS television network when he was asked if he was planning to “rescue” Assad. “Well, you’re right.” Then he warned that the destruction of “the legitimate government” in Syria would create chaos and disintegration as was the case in Libya and Iraq, in a clear jab against American interventions in those two states. “And there is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures and rendering them help in fighting terrorism. But at the same time, urging them to engage in positive dialogue with the rational opposition and conduct reform.”

Redeeming the irredeemable
The false narrative of the Obama administration, and some European countries and a growing number of analysts that confronting ISIS, al-Nusra and other Islamists is the urgent priority now, has played into Putin’s narrative and is beginning to reflect a very disturbing shift towards rehabilitating Assad.

Assad’s regime is the most brutal military machine in Syria, responsible for the killing of more than 95 percent of civilians, according to human rights organizations. Syrians in the main are fleeing the country because of the depredations of the Assad regime. The United Nations envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura said it explicitly that it is “totally unacceptable that the Syrian air force attacks its own territory in an indiscriminate way, killing its own citizens. The use of barrel bombs must stop. All evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of the civilian victims in the Syrian conflict have been caused by the use of such indiscriminate aerial weapons.”

Secretary Kerry recently repeated his pro-forma mantra that Assad has no place in Syria’s future, but he indicated a willingness to keeping him around for a period of time that was negotiable. However the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was more generous towards Assad saying “we have to speak with many actors, this includes Assad…”

Following his meeting with Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan appeared to have fallen into Putin’s circle of thought saying Assad could take part in the transition process. What is so ironic about these political shifts towards Russia and Assad is they are taking place after the Assad regime has suffered serious military setbacks in the Idlib Governorate in the North, which prompted both Russia and Iran to step up their support for the regime. It is crucial here to clarify that both Iran and Russia are committed to defending their strategic and political interests in Syria more than they are wedded to the idea of keeping Assad in power indefinitely. But it is also true that both states are convinced that no future leaders in Damascus regardless of their religious background will give them the kind of unfettered influence and power that Assad has given them.

Partition?
There is ample anecdotal evidence that the fallback position for the Assad regime in the case of the war dragging on for years and regaining control of areas lost to the opposition is no longer viable, that the regime will consolidate control over Damascus and its immediate environs, and a long corridor adjacent to the Lebanese borders linking the capital with Homs and the coastal region, the ancestral land of the Alawite community.

A review of some of the early massacres of Sunni civilians in villages inside or bordering this region such as Bayda, Baniyas, Tal Kalakh and Qusayr show these deliberate killings were designed to cleanse a potential Alawite statelet of Sunnis. The current campaign by the regime and Hezbollah militia against the Sunni enclave of Zabadani close to the Lebanese border is the latest indication that the regime is continuing its sectarian cleansing war.

Short of a massive outside military intervention with ground forces, it is difficult to see a quick end to the war in Syria

Hisham Melhem
The nature and size of the Iranian revolutionary guards and Shiite militias from Lebanon, and elsewhere deployed in Syria, as well as the recent Russian buildup clearly shows that Assad and his allies are unable to wrestle control of the more than 70 percent of Syrian territory that is in the hands of the rebels. Such a de facto state could be defended by Russian and Iranian muscle for the foreseeable future, and the enclave would continue to provide Russia a port on the Mediterranean, and maintain Iran’s land access to Hezbollah in Lebanon. But, the long term survival of such an enclave, if it is not an autonomous part of a unitary federated Syrian state is very doubtful.

The worst is yet to come?
Short of a massive outside military intervention with ground forces, it is difficult to see a quick end to the war in Syria. As we have seen in Angola, Sudan, Afghanistan and Lebanon, such conflicts can rage for more than a decade. Theoretically, it is still possible to save Syria from disintegration, although the chances are diminishing with each passing day.

I do not expect the Obama administration to exercise serious leadership, working with its regional allies to mobilize a serious national and non-Jihadi opposition coalition to take on the Assad regime, ISIS and the other radical Islamist groups. But such an approach should be explored nonetheless. A change in leadership style and content in Washington could force the combatants and their sponsors, to review their plans and options.

Belated American leadership in Bosnia and Kosovo prevented massacres and led to the cessation of hostilities. If the U.S. had not lead a coalition to oust Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait, who knows how many years Saddam would have maintained his occupation? There are many proposals presented by leaders, former officials and academics about how to start reclaiming Syria. The U.S. is still capable of convincing Jordan and Turkey to start recruiting Syrians opposed to both Assad and ISIS, but not according to its impossible vetting criteria which assume almost moral purity on the part of those who are about to go fight brutal evils.

Safe zones should be established close to the borders of Turkey and Jordan, where the displaced can be helped and opposition rebels and NGO’s can begin to provide services, and a modicum of governance. Assad will be warned not to bomb these safe zones, and if he fails to heed the warnings, the U.S. should shoot down his air force, as retired General David Petraeus said last week during his congressional testimony, where he called for greater U.S. role in Syria.

The U.S. and its allies can start working on “Seizing local opportunities in Syria” where new alliances can be formed among non-militant groups and minorities such as the Druze and the admittedly more difficult coordination between Kurdish and Arab groups. There were no serious sustained efforts to explore these possibilities before. Success requires that the U.S. start by re-establishing its credibility, and by convincing all concerned that it is in it to win it. Not exercising such leadership will condemn Syria to a slow but increasingly violent death. But Syria, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas will not go gently or solely into that long cold night.


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Hisham Melhem is a columnist and analyst for Al Arabiya News Channel in Washington, DC. Melhem has interviewed many American and international public figures, including Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, among others. He is also the correspondent for Annahar, the leading Lebanese daily. For four years he hosted "Across the Ocean," a weekly current affairs program on U.S.-Arab relations for Al Arabiya. Follow him on Twitter: @hisham_melhem


Last Update: Saturday, 26 September 2015 KSA 17:00 - GMT 14:00

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2015/09/26/Putin-has-checkmated-Obama-in-Syria.html

 

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Russia’s Game Plan in Syria Is Simple | World Defense

The real reason behind Vladimir Putin’s Syria intervention - Video | World Defense

Russian jets in Syria mean no-fly zone is 'out of the question', warn experts | World Defense

Why Russia is increasing its military presence in Syria | World Defense

 

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Russia’s move into Syria upends U.S. plans

Residents and rescuers in Aleppo search for survivors after what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped this month by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. (Stringer/Reuters)

By Liz Sly September 26 at 11:28 AM
BEIRUT — Russia’s expanding military intervention in Syria has the potential to tilt the course of the war in favor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, leaving U.S. policies aimed at securing his departure in tatters and setting the stage for a new phase in the four-year-old conflict.

Exactly what Russia intends with its rapidly growing deployment of troops, tanks and combat aircraft in the Assad family heartland on Syria’s northern coast is difficult to discern, according to military experts and U.S. officials, who say they were not consulted on the Russian moves and were caught off guard by the intervention.

Already, however, the Russian activity has thrown into disarray three years of U.S. policy planning on Syria, derailing calculations about how the conflict would play out that may never have come to fruition and now almost certainly won’t.

[Administration searches for new approach to aiding rebels in Syria]

Foremost among those was the expectation, frequently expressed by officials in the Obama administration, that both Iran and Russia would eventually tire of supporting the embattled Syrian regime and come around to the American view that Assad should step down as part of a negotiated transition of power. The conclusion of the nuclear talks with Iran in July further raised hopes that Washington and Tehran would also find common ground on Syria.

Instead, the arrival of hundreds of Russian marines, sophisticated fighter jets and armor at a newly expanded air base in the province of Latakia appears to signal a convergence of interests between Moscow and Tehran in support of Assad.

The intervention has given the regime a much-needed boost at a time when government loyalists had been losing ground to the opposition, and it has been broadly welcomed by Syria, Iran and their allies.

“The Americans thought that the negotiations with Iran could include a bargain on Syria, but this issue is over,” Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, whose fighters have been instrumental in securing Assad’s hold on power, said in a television interview Friday. “The negotiations were only about the nuclear issue.”

The sophisticated new weaponry being introduced by the Russians will give a qualitative edge to Assad’s depleted and wearied government forces, thwarting, at least for now, predictions that his demise could be imminent, according to Chris Harmer of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

“This extends Assad’s lifetime indefinitely,” he said. “As long as he’s got major state-based support from Iran and Russia, he can survive.”

The intervention also risks prolonging, intensifying and perhaps expanding the war, if, as is widely predicted, the Russian force uses its firepower not against the Islamic State but against the rebels seeking to topple Assad, some of them backed by the United States.

Russian officials have portrayed the deployments as part of a new effort to fight the Islamic State, amid growing doubts about the efficacy of the Obama administration’s faltering strategy. U.S. plans to train and equip a Syrian force to battle the extremist group have turned into an embarrassing failure. A year-long campaign of airstrikes has had no evident impact on the Islamic State’s control over its core territories.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed the formation of an international coalition to battle the extremists that includes Iran and Syria and would presumably be led by Russia, accompanied by a peace process based out of Moscow in which Assad would play a leading role. The proposals, which Putin is expected to elaborate on in a key address to the United Nations next week and in talks Monday with President Obama, raise the specter of two rival coalitions against the Islamic State and two rival and contradictory peace processes.

Speaking Tuesday after meetings with Russian officials in Moscow, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, left little doubt where Iran’s inclinations lie.

“Iran and Russia are the serious and main partners in a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Syria,” he said, adding that “Bashar al-
Assad, the legitimate president of this country, should be part of the negotiations about Syria’s political future.”

How far Iranian and Russian interests coincide in Syria isn’t clear.

Until evidence of the Russian deployments began to emerge in August, Iran had been the single most influential foreign power in Syria. Russia has consistently supplied weapons and equipment to the Syrian army throughout the war, but it was Iran that stepped in with the cash and men needed to face down the rebellion. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has sent advisers to fight alongside Syrian troops, and Shiite militias backed and funded by Iran, notably Hezbollah, have proved instrumental in sustaining Assad’s hold over the capital, Damascus.

A series of recent visits by Iranian officials to Moscow, including one in July by Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ powerful Quds Force, preceded the Russian deployments, suggesting that they have taken place in consultation with Iran.

Yet the Russian intervention challenges Iranian influence in Syria almost as much as it does the relatively limited role played by the United States, said Marc Pierini of Carnegie Europe.

“Russia is also making a statement vis-a-vis Iran,” he said. “The Russian deployment in Syria is a way to counterbalance Iranian influence.”

Iran has not lent its support to the Russian coalition, and at the United Nations on Friday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appeared to rule out that it would. “I do not see a coalition between Iran and Russia on fighting terrorism in Syria,” Rouhani told a group of editors from news organizations.

Iran can be expected, however, to accommodate Russia’s intervention for roughly the same reasons that the United States was hoping Tehran would turn against Assad — because backing the Syrian regime has become a costly strain, according to Kamel Wazne, a Beirut-based political analyst who is close to Iran.

“The Russians are saying to Iran and Hezbollah, ‘We are the decision-maker in this part of the world,’ ” he said. “Iran and Hezbollah will welcome this initiative because the war in Syria has been a drain.”

“There have been a lot of casualties for Hezbollah in Syria, and there is no end in sight,” he added. “If you have a headache and someone comes and says they will take the headache, you’ll say, okay you can have it.”

How much of the headache Russia will take away from the stretched loyalist forces has yet to be seen, military analysts say. Both Russia and Syria deny that Russian troops are participating in ground operations, though officials in both countries haven’t ruled out that they might.

Yet the deployments are continuing, with aircraft and equipment arriving on a daily basis, according to U.S. officials and satellite imagery. Images obtained in recent days by the defense consulting firm IHS Jane’s contain evidence that Russia is expanding its footprint at two new sites north of the airport in Latakia, including the construction of new buildings and tents of the kind used by Russian military units.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said last week that the intervention will be welcome if Russia is looking to play “a constructive role” against the Islamic State but not if it is aimed at propping up Assad, “because it is the Assad regime that has been a magnet for extremists inside Syria.”

Most analysts doubt that the Russian engagement will become as deep or as intrusive as the intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when Russian troops became deeply mired in a bloody war of attrition with U.S.-backed Afghan rebels that lured jihadist fighters from around the globe.

But almost any combat the Russians engage in is as likely to bring them into conflict with anti-Assad rebels as with the Islamic State, located hundreds of miles to the east of the Russians’ coastal bases.

“The Russians will fight everyone who fights against Assad,” said Wazne, the Beirut-based analyst. “They don’t see a difference between extremists and the opposition.”

Whether the intervention will work to end the war is a different question, he said. “If there is no political solution, the conflict will drag on for a very long time. But the boundaries of the conflict will be clear, and Assad will be protected by the Russians.”

Russia’s move into Syria upends U.S. plans - The Washington Post

 

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Saudi king and Putin discuss Syrian conflict

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/09/27/Putin-and-Saudi-king-discuss-Syrian-conflict-.html