Russians target all Syrian rebels
SYRIA’s army announced a “vast offensive” yesterday to wrest back territory from opposition groups as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) voiced alarm at escalating Russian military activity in the war-torn country.
Moscow has dramatically stepped up its nine-day-old air war against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, with heavy bombing by warplanes and cruise missile strikes from the Caspian Sea.
A Syrian general said the Russian intervention had weakened the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group and other armed opponents of Mr Assad.
But the US said more than 90% of Russia’s strikes had targeted the moderate opposition.
Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said there had been a “troubling escalation” in Moscow’s air campaign. “We will assess the latest developments and their implications for the security of the alliance,” he said before going into a Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels.
“This is particularly relevant in view of the recent violations of Nato’s airspace by Russian aircraft.”
Tensions between Russia and Nato member Turkey shot up this week after Russian aircraft infringed on Turkish airspace at least twice. The Russian air war has provided cover for Mr Assad’s ground troops, who have previously lost swathes of the country to IS and other fighters seeking to topple him.
The Syrian army’s chief of staff, Gen Ali Abdullah Ayoub, announced the “vast offensive to defeat the terrorist groups” and restore army control over opposition-held areas. He did not say where the operation would take place, but that Russian air strikes had helped “weaken the fighting capabilities of Daesh and other terrorist groups”, using the Arabic acronym for IS. Quoted by Syrian state television, he said the strikes had helped Syria’s armed forces “maintain the military initiative”.
Moscow carried out new air raids yesterday on Mr Assad’s coastal heartland of Latakia, the central province of Hama and near the northwestern city of Idlib, said a monitoring group.
Russian bombardment came in support of a ground assault by Syrian troops and allied militia seeking to push rebels back from the Sahl al-Ghab plain in Hama, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The plain, which borders on Latakia, has been the focus of a months-long offensive by a rebel alliance including al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front.
Syrian state television said Russian and Syrian warplanes had conducted “precise strikes on terrorist organisations in northern parts of Latakia” targeting Al-Nusra and others on Sahl al-Ghab. In the nearby village of Kafr Nabuda, rebel forces shot down a lowflying military helicopter, but it was unclear whether the aircraft was Syrian or Russian, said observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.
Since September 30, the Russian Air Force has been conducting strikes on Syrian targets that Moscow says are held by IS and “other terrorists”.
But nonjihadist rebels and their international backers insist that most of the areas targeted are not held by IS.
“Greater than 90% of the strikes that we’ve seen them take to date have not been against ISIL or al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists,” said US state department spokesman John Kirby.
“They’ve been largely against opposition groups that want a better future for Syria and don’t want to see the Assad regime stay in power.”
Asked if Nato would consider extending its mission in light of Russian missile attacks, Mr Stoltenberg said: “Nato is able and ready to defend all of the allies, including Turkey.”
According to Syrian daily Al-Watan, the army captured Latmeen and at least 10 other villages, “retaking control of 70km ”, it quoted a source as saying. At least 13 regime fighters and 11 rebels were killed, the observatory said.