Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Russia steps up air campaign in Syria
As government forces push on, EU says Moscow can’t save Assad regime
DAMASCUS, Syria — Russian jets intensified their airstrikes Monday in central Syria as government forces battled insurgents in a strategic area near a rebel-held province and a government stronghold.
The government push is the latest in a bid to regain the Sahl al-Ghab plain, which is adjacent to Latakia province, a stronghold of President Bashar Assad and the Alawite religious minority group to which he belongs.
European Union nations on Monday criticized Russia’s military intervention in Syria, maintaining that Moscow’s efforts wouldn’t keep Assad in power. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also criticized Russia, accusing it of prolonging the war in Syria. But in Iraq, Russia is drawing high praise among the country’s Shiite majority.
After numerous Russian airstrikes, the fighting was focused on the village of Kfar Nabudeh, which officials said had been seized by government troops. Activists said Syrian rebels repelled the attack.
Capturing Kfar Nabudeh, in Hama province, would cut off a major highway, giving the pro-government forces access to the northwestern province of Idlib. A rebel coalition that includes the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front drove Assad’s forces out of Idlib in September, in a major setback for the government. Their hold on the province threatened Latakia.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had struck 53 suspected Islamic State targets in 24 hours, destroying command centers, ammunition and fuel depots, and training camps that it said were used by foreign militants.
The ministry said the Islamic State positions were in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, as well as in Latakia and Idlib. The Islamic State has a limited presence in Hama, away from where the fighting has been concentrated.
Russia insists it is mainly targeting the Islamic State and other “terrorists,” but the multipronged ground-and-air offensive is being waged in areas controlled by mainstream rebels as well as the Nusra Front. The government ground offensive began Wednesday, a week after Russia began its airstrikes.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 30 airstrikes were carried out in Kfar Nabudeh and that government troops and Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters entered the village from the south. Another activist-run monitoring group, the Shaam News Network, said the insurgents ambushed government forces inside the village, which is reportedly riddled with tunnels.
The Syrian military said in a statement that it took control of the village and others nearby. Activist Hadi Abdullah, who travels with insurgents to report from the front lines, said the fighters had regained control of the village. It was not possible to reconcile the two accounts.
The Observatory reported that the fighting and air raids on Kfar Nabudeh left nine militants and five troops and pro-government gunmen dead.
Later Monday, Syrian state media and the Observatory
said government forces captured the village of Mansoura on the northern edge of Hama province.
During the past six days of ground operations, government troops have seized at least two villages in eastern Hama province, Atshan and Tal Sukayk, and a third in the area of the Sahl al-Ghab plain. Activists say rebels seized a village south of Idlib.
The Russian Defense Ministry statement said its jets have hit mortar positions around Tal Sukayk in the past 24 hours, as well as a training camp for foreign militants in Mastouma, in Idlib. The ministry said it used Su-34, Su24M and Su-25SM planes to strike the targets.
In a separate development, the French Defense Ministry said it cannot confirm whether some French citizens were killed in its airstrikes last week on the Islamic State group’s capital, Raqqa, in the province of the same name.
France joined the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq last year and expanded its campaign to Syria last month. Britain has acknowledged its airstrikes targeted citizens in Syria.
The Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said 16 militants were killed in the airstrikes in Raqqa and that there were no reports of French citizens among them. One of those killed was believed to be Belgian, he said.
European Union nations on Monday criticized Russia’s military intervention in Syria, with the bloc’s top diplomat calling it a worrying “game changer.” But EU countries maintained that Moscow’s efforts wouldn’t keep President Bashar Assad in power.
EU foreign ministers warned Moscow to center its military actions in Syria on the Islamic State group and not go after the moderate opposition at the same time.
“It has to be coordinated” among the U.S., the EU and Russia, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said of the attacks in Syria. “Otherwise it risks being extremely dangerous, not only from a political point of view, but mainly from a military point of view.”
Russian airstrikes have backed moves by Syrian troops against insurgents in the center of the country, but President Vladimir Putin has said Russian efforts would help reach a political settlement.
Countering this, the EU ministers said in a statement that “this military escalation risks prolonging the conflict, undermining a political process, aggravating the humanitarian situation and increasing radicalization.”
Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, on Monday accused Russia of prolonging the war in Syria by supporting Assad.
Speaking at NATO’s parliamentary assembly in the southwestern Norwegian port
of Stavanger, Stoltenberg said Russia’s violation of Turkish and NATO airspace is unacceptable.
He called on Moscow to “play a constructive role in the fight against ISIL,” using an acronym for the Islamic State.