Tensions increase in Syria
Russia, Iran send U.S. warnings
BEIRUT — Russia on Monday threatened aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition in Syrian controlled airspace and suspended a hotline intended to avoid collisions in retaliation for the U.S. military shooting down a Syrian warplane.
The moves were the most recent example of an intensifying clash of words and interests between the two powers, which support different sides in the yearslong war in Syria.
The U.S. said it had downed the Syrian jet a day earlier after it dropped bombs near the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces conducting operations against the Islamic State group, adding that was something it would not tolerate.
The downing of the warplane — the first time in the six-year conflict that the U.S. has shot down a Syrian jet and the first time a U.S. jet has shot down a manned hostile aircraft in more than a decade — came amid another first: Iran fired several ballistic missiles Sunday night at IS
positions in eastern Syria in what it said was a message to archrival Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The developments added to already-soaring regional tensions and reflect the intensifying rivalry among the major players in Syria’s civil war that could spiral out of control just as the fight against IS in its stronghold of Raqqa is gaining ground.
Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, called on the U.S. military to provide a full accounting as to why it decided to shoot down the Syrian Su-22 bomber.
The U.S. military confirmed that one of its F-18 Super Hornets shot down a Syrian jet that had dropped bombs near the U.S. partner forces SDF.
In Moscow, officials said that Sunday’s shootdown was intended as a message aimed squarely at Russia.
Frants Klintsevich, deputy head of the defense and security committee of the Russian upper house of parliament, called the incident “an aggression and a provocation.”
“It looks like [President] Donald Trump’s United States is a source of a brand-new danger both in the Middle East and the world at large,” Mr. Klintsevich wrote on his Facebook page.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that as of Monday, all coalition jets and drones flying west of the Euphrates River will be tracked as potential targets.
The Defense Ministry statement doesn’t mean there’ll be war with the U.S., though it’s a “pretty serious” signal that Russia won’t accept acts of aggression against Syria, said Mr. Klintsevich.
Areas of northern Syria west of the Euphrates were controlled by IS before Syrian government forces captured most of them in recent months. The Russians, who have been providing air cover for Assad’s forces since 2015, appear to want to avoid further U.S. targeting of Syrian warplanes or ground troops that have come under U.S. attack in eastern Syria recently.
It was the second time Russia suspended a hotline intended to minimize incidents with the U.S. in Syrian airspace.
Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Washington is working to re-establish communications aimed at avoiding mishaps involving U.S. and Russian air operations in Syria.
And Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said that “appropriate platforms” had been dispatched to help ensure operations would continue against IS, which was an apparent reference to U.S. aircraft designed to intercept enemy jets.
Speaking in Washington, the top U.S. military officer said the two sides were in delicate discussions to lower tensions.
Iran said the missile strike by its powerful Revolutionary Guard hit Syria’s eastern city of Deir el-Zour on Sunday night and was in retaliation for two attacks in Tehran earlier this month that killed 17 people and were claimed by IS.
It appeared to be Iran’s first missile attack abroad in over 15 years and its first in the Syrian conflict, in which it has provided crucial support to Assad.