U.S., Syrians concerned about Russian copters
More advanced aircraft support troops battling anti-assad rebels
Syrian activists say the arrival of Russian attack helicopters to aid government forces on the battlefield could turn back successes rebels have won recently against the military of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The new attack helicopters are more maneuverable, more heavily armed and harder to shoot down than aircraft used in the past. They “cause a lot more harm,” said Louay Sakka of the Syrian Support Group. Assad’s military has had “a hard time fighting the Free Syrian Army, and they’ve started using helicopters,” he said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that she is concerned that Russia’s move “will escalate the conflict quite dramatically.”
Syrian forces struck the eastern city of Deir el-Zour with mortars Tuesday, killing at least 10 people, according to the Local Coordination Committees activist group and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The United Nations says Assad’s forces have killed more than 10,000 people.
The Free Syrian Army ousted regime forces from several towns recently, including Bab Elhwa near the Turkish border last month, where about 20 tanks were destroyed, Sakka said. The city was retaken by Assad after 70 tanks arrived and forced the Free Syrian Army to withdraw.
Assad’s forces have lost tanks because they’re entering places, where they’re vulnerable to rebel grenade fire, says John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org. Attack helicopters are more maneuverable and precise and can reach spots more quickly.
“Put a few in the sky, and you’ve got on-call fire support all over town,” he said.
Such an escalation by Russia is an “in-your-face move” that will be noticed by other countries in the region, says Tom Donnelly, a Middle East expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
“We have said Assad has to go, and if that doesn’t happen, that’s a big defeat for American influence and power,” Donnelly said. “We’ve been intervening in the Middle East since the end of the Cold War … and now the course of events seems to be headed in the other direction. That is a seriously big deal.”
Russia and Syria have a long military relationship, and Syria hosts Russia’s only naval base on the Mediterranean Sea.
Hozan Ibrahim, a Berlin-based member of the Syrian National Council, an exiled opposition group, said Russia should change course on Syria. “Russia has always demanded and claimed that they are against military intervention in Syria, whereas they have been supporting the regime with weapons and the political coverage for its crimes and massacres.”