NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ANNE BARNARD
September 30, 2015
Russia Launches Airstrikes in Syria, Adding a New Wrinkle
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered a round of airstrikes inSyria on Wednesday, adding an unpredictable and potentially destabilizing element to a complex sectarian war that has drawn in the United States and regional powers while creating millions of refugees.
While Moscow’s stated purpose in Syria is to fight Islamic State militants, Russian warplanes and helicopter gunships dropped bombs north of the central city of Homs, in an area held by rebel groups opposed to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally. The attacks were unleashed hours after Mr. Putin pushed a measure through the upper house of Russia’s rubber stamp Parliament authorizing the use of force abroad.
At a meeting of government officials in Moscow on Wednesday, Mr. Putin defended the Russian intervention as a broad stroke against terrorism. “The only right way to fight international terrorism — and it is gangs of international terrorists that are fighting in Syria and in neighboring countries — is to act preventively,” he said, “to fight and destroy militants and terrorists on the territories that they already occupied, not wait for them to come to our house.”
Western diplomats warned that Russia would be sending a dangerous message if its attacks were aimed primarily against opponents of Mr. Assad, rather than the Islamic State.
“We need the Russians to understand that in coming to defense of the regime to attack ISIL, what they will do is forge a single united force under ISIL leadership against the regime,” said the British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, using an alternate name for the Islamic State. “That’s the huge danger we face.”
Analysts have warned that Russia’s military activities are likely to prolong and complicate the war, as they could keep Mr. Assad in office and add Russia to the already tangled patchwork of forces deployed there.
John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, told reporters at the United Nations that Russia had warned the United States before the attacks, and that it had requested that American and allied aircraft avoid Syrian airspace during the missions.
Russia has long had a naval base in the coastal city of Tartus.
Russia has deployed warplanes, tanks and marines at an airfield near Latakia.
On Wednesday, Russian warplanes dropped bombs near the city of Homs.
But Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at the United Nations, made it clear that U.S.-led airstrikes would not be curtailed, and said that the latest strike against Islamic State targets had been carried out “in the last hour.”
“These strikes will continue,” he told the Security Council.
American officials in Baghdad said the Russian warning came from an official in Baghdad, who informed staff members at the United States Embassy there that Russian military aircraft would begin conducting a mission. They emphasized that the Russians had not provided specific information on the mission or taken steps to “deconflict” the airstrike with American air operations in the region, as the United States hoped.
At a briefing Wednesday afternoon, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, confirmed that United States military officials had yet to have any conversations with their Russian counterparts to ensure that the two sides do not accidentally attack or stumble into each other.
As a practical matter, coalition warplanes rarely fly in the area of Syria where Russian jets carried out their strikes, because Islamic State militants do not operate there. However, there have been occasional American strikes against the Khorasan Group, a group of senior Qaeda operatives who American officials say are plotting attacks against the West.
A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said its pilots were engaged in precision strikes “against the military equipment, communication centers, transport vehicles, arms depots, ammunition and fuels and lubricant materials belonging to ISIS terrorists.”
Although Russia and Syrian state television both said the attacks were conducted against Islamic State targets, they appear to have hit areas controlled primarily by rival insurgent groups that oppose both Mr. Assad and the Islamic State.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that he believes the only way to deal with terrorists in Syria is to act preemptively.
In a video on YouTube, a rebel commander in Hama Province, Jamil al-Saleh, said that his forces had eavesdropped on communications between Syrian Air Force pilots and their bases, which confirmed that Russian warplanes were aloft. His group, the Izza Gathering, is one of the remaining fragments of the loosely-knit Free Syrian Army, relatively secular groups that have received some Western support.
Mr. Earnest said the Pentagon had not determined who the targets were. “We have a variety of ways, particularly given our presence in the region, to evaluate exactly what Russia’s military operations are resulting in,” he said, “and that’s something our Department of Defense is looking into.”
The attacks, according to state-run television and rebel sources, occurred north of Homs and into Hama Province. Recent advances in Hama by a coalition of insurgents opposed to Mr. Assad as well as to the Islamic State have posed new threats to the coastal Alawite heartland where Mr. Assad enjoys his strongest support. That coalition has a range of groups including the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria; less extremist Islamist groups, and relatively secular groups like Mr. Saleh’s.
In his comments, Mr. Putin said that the only long-term solution for Syria was through political change and dialogue between the opposition and the government. “I know that President Assad understands that and is ready for this process,” Mr. Putin said. He said Russia hoped Mr. Assad would make “compromises in the name of his country and his people.”
The United States has long held that Mr. Assad, who has presided over a war that has killed well over 200,000 Syrians, many at the hands of his security forces, must step down before a stable peace can be achieved. Lately, President Obama has added some nuance, saying that Mr. Assad could be part of a “managed transition” to a new government.
In Syria, the state-run news media strongly endorsed the move by Russia. Supporters of Mr. Assad seemed particularly pleased that Moscow was sending military aid because they felt his endorsement at the United Nations two days ago was a bit tepid.
Mr. Kerry said the Obama administration would welcome “any genuine effort” by Moscow to target the Islamic State and Jabhet al-Nusra, a rebel group linked to Al Qaeda. But Mr. Kerry made clear that the United States would have “grave concerns” if the Russians bombed other moderate rebel groups.
He also called for a revival of a stalled United Nations-led peace process, with the understanding that Mr. Assad must “decline to be part of its long-term future.” Any international effort to broker a political deal would be seen as “a farce” if it sustained Mr. Assad’s hold on power, Mr. Kerry added.
The Russian airstrikes came the same day the government announced intensive maneuvers involving Mi-28 attack helicopters and others in southern Russia.
Mr. Putin harbors both international and domestic reasons for interfering in Syria.
On the international front, he wants to restore Russian influence as a global power and try to force an end to the diplomatic and financial isolation the West imposed after Moscow seized Crimea and supported separatists in southeastern Ukraine. He also wants to maintain control over Russia’s naval station at Tartus, in Syria, its only remaining overseas military base outside the former Soviet Union.
Domestically, he wants to draw attention away from the Ukraine conflict and the troubled Russian economy, as well as to burnish his image as an international man of action who solves problems.
“Geopolitics and the desire to protect Russia’s influence in the Mediterranean is the main motive,” said Alexei Makarkin, the deputy director of the Center for Political Technologies. “The second motive is to limit the flow of Islamic State recruiters into Russia.”
Russian surveillance drones have been sighted over parts of Syria where other rebel groups are deployed, specifically those around Aleppo in Idlib Province that threaten Latakia. Drone activity has been absent in northeast Syria, where Islamic State militants controls major urban centers.
To American officials, the drone flights confirmed suspicions that Russia’s primary purpose in Syria is to bolster the fortunes of Mr. Assad’s deteriorating forces, not to fight terrorism. Military experts in Moscow, however, suggested that Russian drones lack the range to reach northeastern Syria, but had to stay within range of their base in Latakia, on the Mediterranean.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, quoting anonymous Israeli officials, reported that Russia had also informed Israeli security officials about an hour before the aerial strikes in Syria. Last week Mr. Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel agreed to create a coordination mechanism to avoid confrontation between Israeli and Russian aircraft over Syria.
Russia had already said it would establish an information center in Baghdad so that Iran, Iraq and Syria could pool intelligence about the Islamic State, which controls wide stretches of territory in Iraq and Syria.
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