The Assad regime loses a second province, as controversy ensues over Russia’s military presence in Syria
September 10, 2015
From Media
On September 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters that Bashar al-Assad agreed to hold early parliamentary elections and to share some powers with what he called a “healthy opposition”. Mr. Putin argued that the move could help facilitate a broader international coalition to battle Islamic State (IS) militants, one that Russia would consider participating in. At the same time, there were increasing reports about a Russian military buildup in Syria with some sources even suggesting that Russian forces are involved in combat operations.
The Syrian government suffered a major blow this week after it lost control over a second province on Wednesday as troops withdrew from Idlib in the northwest after a two-year siege on the Abu al-Duhur military airport. The head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said that members of a local pro-government militia still had a presence in two Shia villages, but that the army had completely pulled out of Idlib province. Rebel sources told Reuters that al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra played a key part in capturing the airport in northwestern Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra is part of the Army of Conquest (Jaysh al-Fatah) coalition, which has taken control of most of Idlib province.
Raqqa, the first entire province to fall out of government control, was lost to IS militants in January 2014. “This is another blow for President Assad and his overstretched forces, but Idlib was already all but lost to the rebels,” the BBC’s Arab Affairs Correspondent Sebastian Usher said. Commenting on the Army of Conquest coalition, he added: “The coalition's success has come both from uniting a variety of rebel militias into a single fighting force and a rapprochement of sorts between their main backers, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, which has allowed a new flow of cash and weapons”.
It was initially reported on Monday that Islamic State had seized the last government-controlled oilfield, but the Syrian Observatory subsequently reported that fighting over the complex was still ongoing.
US concerns over Russia’s military presence in Syria
President Putin’s statement last Friday came amidst reports about a Russian military build-up in Syria. Alongside Iran, Russia is a key backer of Mr. Assad in the diplomatic and military realm. Moscow has made it clear that it does not want to see the Syrian president ousted. The Kremlin has used gains by IS in Syria to argue for the inclusion of the Syrian government in an anti-terrorism alliance. However, the US, Turkey and other Western and Arab states have so far refused to embrace Mr. Assad in their efforts against IS and other jihadist groups.
Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the US was deeply concerned about reported moves towards a Russian military build-up in Syria, the State Department said on Saturday. A senior US official told Reuters that authorities had detected “worrisome preparatory steps”, which included the transport of prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people and an air traffic control station to a Syrian airfield near the government stronghold of Latakia. “You see all the indications that they are getting ready to establish a major air operations hub,” another senior US official said.
Subsequently on Monday, the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported that Russian military experts who had arrived in Syria weeks ago have been inspecting air bases and working to enlarge runways. Citing a Syrian source, the report said that there had been “no fundamental change” in Russian forces on the ground in Syria, while stressing that Russia had “started moving towards a qualitative initiative in the armament relationship for the first time since the start of the war on Syria”. As-Safir, which is said to be well connected in Damascus, also highlighted that no decision had been made about what type of weapons the Assad government would receive from Moscow.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP on Tuesday that at least three Russian military transport planes had landed in Syria in recent days. On the same day, Syria’s information minister, Omran Zohbi, denied reports of increased military activity by Russian troops in Syria.
“There are no Russian forces, and there is no Russian military activity on Syrian territory by land, sea or air,” Mr. Zohbi told Hezbollah’s Al Manar television station.
Any military support to the Assad regime could further escalate the conflict, leading to the loss of more innocent lives.
– Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general
But on Wednesday, the Russian foreign ministry said its military advisers were present in Syria, but stressed that this was under longstanding agreements to provide military aid to Syria.
“We have been supplying Syria with arms and military equipment for a long time,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. “We are doing this in accordance with existing contracts and in full accordance with international law.”
Three Lebanese sources, who also asked not to be identified, told Reuters on Wednesday that Russian troops had started to participate in combat operations in Syria. One of the Lebanese sources said that Russia’s combat role was small, so far.
“There are numbers of Russians taking part in Syria but they did not yet join the fight against terrorism strongly,” he said.
There was no immediate official confirmation from either Damascus or Moscow.
Analysts and officials were unclear on the objectives of Russia’s increased military presence. Relations between the two countries date back to the Soviet era, and extend beyond the military-political realm to significant economic ties. Under a 1971 agreement, the Russian Navy uses the Syrian port of Tartus as its sole base of operations in the Mediterranean Sea. The port is widely seen as a key strategic asset for Moscow and has been linked to its support for President Assad.
Russian military involvement in Syria’s civil conflict was previously reported on last year. After the fall of a Syrian army base in Daraa province in October 2014, rebels claimed that there was evidence that Russian military intelligence officers had worked at the facility. A video purporting to show the captured base showed indications that Russian Spetsnaz special forces units, working on signal intelligence, were deployed there during fighting. The video, which could not be independently verified, showed pictures and military logos with writing in Russian and Arabic script.
Writing for Fair Observer in April, Carl Anthony Wege, a professor of political science at the Coastal College of Georgia and an expert on the Syrian Civil War, argued that the region between Deraa and Damascus “is a primary operational area for Russian personnel”. Russian “anti-terror” squads were allegedly entering Syria via a Russian military facility north of Tartus, he said.
The US is revamping its efforts to train an anti-IS force in Syria
One of the Obama administration’s key plans for tackling the rise of IS in Syria is a Pentagon training programme for Syrian rebels, who have to undergo a rigorous screening process and are mandated to only fight IS and not regime forces. The CIA has been running a separate covert programme. In early July, US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee July that the $500 million Pentagon programme had only produced 60 vetted candidates.
In subsequent weeks, reports emerged that several members of the newly formed rebel group, Division 30, had been abducted by al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. Some of them were subsequently released.
In the face of these failings, the Pentagon is now working on plans to restructure the training programme, Eric Schmitt and Ben Hubbard reported for The New York Times this week. Accordingly, the currently classified options include “enlarging the size of the groups of trained rebels sent back into Syria, shifting the location of the deployments to ensure local support, and improving intelligence provided to the fighters”. Four senior Defence Department and Obama administration officials told the newspaper that no decision had been taken on specific proposals.
Among the problems the programme has faced is the identification of destinations within Syria for the newly trained fighters, the newspaper reported. “We don’t have direct command and control with those forces once we do finish training and equipping them, when we put them back into the fight,” Brigadier General Kevin J. Killea, chief of staff for the American-led military operation fighting IS, said on Friday.
Two Syrian rebel commanders told The New York Times that the programme had faced problems from the start with one commander, Abdul-Razaq Freiji, saying that the group sent into Syria was too small.
Many analysts have seen the programme’s shortcomings as part of the struggle to expand the pool of reliable partners on the ground, beyond Kurdish forces like the People’s Protection Units in northern Syria.
President Assad’s future remains a sticking point
Recent weeks have seen an increasing diplomatic opening, as a trilateral meeting between US Secretary of State Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir in August exemplified. However, there still remain several sticking points that could hinder further progress, among them the future of President Assad.
While the Obama administration has shifted its focus on battling IS, it has not altered its position on the president, arguing that he is part of the problem, not the solution. Saudi Arabia, a key backer of the Syrian opposition, has recently made clear as well that it sees no future for Mr. Assad in Syria. Russia and Iran, however, have reaffirmed their support for the Syrian president, both seeing Mr. Assad as the only person able to safeguard their interests.
The US has not specified when or how Mr. Assad has to go, thus leaving open the possibility of “a transition that begins with him still in office - an almost impossible sell to the rebels fighting him,” Tom Perry and Gabriela Baczynska wrote for Reuters. It is also far from clear what impact potential early parliamentary elections would have, as many rebel groups, among them the most dominant fighting forces, have so far rejected engaging with the Assad government.
Added to that is the fact that, despite the formation of rebel alliances in various parts of the country, there is still a great variety of often opposing forces operating in Syria, which makes a political solution harder to achieve.
“At the moment no one is talking about (Assad) departing or not,” one Western diplomat told Reuters.
By Manuel Langendorf/ THE WORLD WEEKLY
