RUSSIAN SHIPS LAUNCH CRUISE MISSILES INTO SYRIA
Long-distance strikes escalate conflict, tensions
Russian warships fired a volley of cruise missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea on Wednesday as Russianbacked Syrian government troops launched a ground offensive to crush rebel forces opposing the regime of President Bashar Assad.
The missile strikes mark amajor escalation of Russia’s recent involvement in Syria’s long civil war and a growing threat to a faltering U.S. policy in Syria.
Russia said four warships carried out 26 missile strikes from the Caspian Sea, destroying 11 targets more than 900 miles away. The missiles crossed Iranian and Iraqi airspace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin backs longtime ally Assad in his 4-yearold civil war against rebels that include the Islamic State extremists and more moderate opposition groups backed by the United States. That goal runs counter to the Obama administration’s objectives. The United States leads a coalition campaign of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria to defeat the Islamic State and calls for Assad’s removal.
“We’re really on our back foot and have been since the Russians started
their buildup in Syria,” said Jeff White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “We’ve lost the initiative.”
The Pentagon accused Russia of bolstering Assad by attacking moderate opposition groups the United States supports. Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called the Russian strategy “tragically flawed.”
Russian officials countered that their goal is to go after all terrorist groups. Russia seeks “a terror-free Syria and a terror-free region,” said Aydar Agan in, a Middle East analyst at the Russian Embassy in Washington.
Rejecting U.S. claims that the airstrikes are not aimed at Islamic State militants, Agan in said, “We strike terrorists.”
Washington is struggling to find a winning strategy for ending Syria’s civil war and halting a flood of refugees swarming into the Middle East and Europe.
Even before the Russian buildup, the Pentagon acknowledged its plan to field a force of moderate rebels to fight the Islam- ic State had run into problems, and it suspended most of the program after training just a few fighters.
One U.S. military-trained group was attacked by al- Qaeda-linked forces shortly after arriving in Syria, and another turned over equipment and ammunition to the same terrorist organization. Only a handful of Pentagon-trained opposition forces remain in Syria.
“I’m the first one to acknowledge it has not worked the way it was supposed to,” President Obama said recently.
The White House and military officials are examining other ways to support-moderate opposition forces to counter the Islamic State. Those groups may be vulnerable to Russian attacks.
The U.S.-led coalition has dropped thousands of bombs on Islamic State targets but has kept ground forces out of the country. Russia has deployed helicopter gunships, tanks and rocket launchers to Syria, along with troops to guard Russian bases. Putin said he would not send ground combat troops to Syria.
Assad’s forces, which had suffered a number of defeats before the Russians sent support, are engaged in an offensive cen- tered around Hama in north-central Syria.
Obama has accused Putin of intervening in Syria “because his client, Mr. Assad, was crumbling.” Obama wants Assad out, citing atrocities against his own people.
“Now we have to contemplate going to war with Russia if we want to get rid of Assad,” said Christopher Chivvis, an analyst at RAND Corp.
Agan in said Moscow’s goal is not to protect Assad but to fight the spread of terrorism. He noted that the Syrian battlefields are 300 miles from Russia’s Caucasus region. He said Russia estimates that 2,000 fighters from former Soviet republics have joined the radicals.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that it has already had to reroute a U.S. aircraft over Syria on at least one occasion to maintain a safe distance from Russian aircraft, which are now conducting airstrikes in the war-torn country.
The Pentagon has not released details about rerouting the aircraft, but CBS News on Monday quoted Lt. Gen. Charles Brown, commander of the American air campaign, saying Russian aircraft had not gotten closer than 20 miles to American manned aircraft.