Conflict in syria

The downing of an Israeli jet by the Syrian government and the retaliation by Israel shows the conflict is escalating dangerously out of control.

The latest incident happens in the same week that US forces massacred between 100 to 500 of President Assad’s forces including, it is alleged, some Russian mercenaries who were killed, and barely a week after last Saturday’s shooting down of a Russian Su-25 fighter jet over Idlib province.

The three incidents have raised tensions in Syria between the two major nuclear powers to an unprecedented level.

The US has some 2,000 special forces in Syria. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said the US intends to use the Kurds as a proxy force. This has led to Turkey going after the Kurds in Afrin with alleged rebranded Isis fighters. So far the US has done nothing to stop the Turks attacking the Kurds.

The pretext for the illegal US military intervention in the country–so-called war against Daesh – has evaporated and its real motives emerged ever more openly. These include Syrian regime change, sought initially through the support of the CIA and the Pentagon for al-qaeda-linked Islamist militias against the Assad government, and, more broadly, combating Iranian and Russian influence and continuing the bloody decades-old campaign for US hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East.

ALAN HINNRICHS Gillespie Terrace, Dundee