World |
Islamic State closes in on Syrian city of Aleppo; U.S. abandons rebel training effort
BEIRUT/ANKARA |
Islamic State fighters have seized villages close to the northern city of Aleppo from rival insurgents, a monitoring group said on Friday, despite an intensifying Russian air-and-sea campaign that Moscow says has targeted the militant group.
News of the advance came as the United States announced it was largely abandoning its failed program to train moderate rebels fighting Islamic State and would instead provide arms and equipment directly to rebel leaders and their units on the battlefield.
The Obama administration is grappling with a dramatic change in the four-year-old Syrian civil war brought about by Moscow's intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Pentagon said on Friday it expected to hold new talks with Russia's military on pilot safety in Syria's war as soon as this weekend, as the former Cold War foes seek to avoid an accidental clash as they carry out rival bombing campaigns.
The Russian defense ministry said stepped-up air strikes on rebel positions in Syria killed 300 anti-Assad rebels and that it hit 60 Islamic State targets over the last day. There was no independent confirmation of the death toll.
About 200 insurgents were killed in an attack on the Liwa al-Haqq group in Raqqa province while 100 died in Aleppo, the defense ministry said. Two Islamic State commanders were among the dead in Russia's most intense raids since it launched strikes in Syria 10 days ago. In previous updates Russia has reported hitting 10 targets daily.
However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the fighting, said there had been no significant advances by government forces backed by allied militia in areas where ground offensives were launched this week. "It's back and forth," said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Observatory.
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps said separately that one of its generals had been killed near Aleppo, once Syria's most populous city. Iran, like Russia an Assad ally, says it has advisers in the country.
Islamic State is now within 2 km (1.2 miles) of government-held territory on the northern edge of Aleppo, which has suffered widespread damage and disease during the civil war that erupted in the wake of protests against Assad.
Syria's military, backed by Russia, Iran and allied militias, has launched a major attack in Syria's west to recapture land lost to non-IS rebels near the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect. That area is vital to Assad's survival.
A senior regional official close to the Syrian government said: "The Iranians are at the heart of the battle, with strength and effectiveness. Yes they are participating."
As the government operation in the west pushed ahead, Islamic State said its fighters had captured five villages in its northern offensive and had killed more than 10 soldiers or militiamen. Powerful insurgent group Ahrar al-Sham managed to recapture one of the villages, Tel Suseen, later in the day, the Observatory and online media affiliated with the rebels said, but the others appeared to remain in IS hands.
The British-based Observatory said it was the biggest advance by Islamic State since it launched an offensive against rival rebels in Aleppo near the Turkish border in late August.
"DAESH EXPLOIT RUSSIAN STRIKES"
"Daesh has exploited the Russian air strikes and the preoccupation of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army in its battles in Hama, and advanced in Aleppo," said one rebel commander with fighters in the region, using an Arabic name for Islamic State.
Russian warplanes and warships have been bombarding targets across Syria in a campaign Moscow says is targeting IS fighters, who control large parts of eastern Syriaand of Iraq.
But the campaign appears to have mainly struck other rebel groups, some of which had been battling to stop the Islamic State advance across Aleppo province.
U.S. and Russian warplanes are now flying missions over the same country for the first time since World War Two, risking incidents between the two air forces and their fast jets.
Seeking to underline the dangers, U.S. officials said four Russian cruise missiles fired from a warship in the Caspian Sea had crashed in Iran, which drew a swift denial from Russia.
Speaking in London on Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said, however, that the United States had indications that Russian cruise missiles malfunctioned.
Washington said it was pulling the plug on a short-lived $580 million program to train and equip units of fighters at sites outside of Syria, after its disastrous launch this year fanned criticism of President Barack Obama's war strategy.
The Pentagon said it would shift its focus to providing weapons and other equipment to rebel groups whose leaders have passed a U.S. vetting process to ensure they are not linked to militant Islamist groups.
France has also been involved in the anti-Islamic State effort, launching its first air strike in Syria on Sept. 27.
French Rafale warplanes attacked an IS training camp in their stronghold of Raqqa overnight. "We struck because we know that in Syria, particularly around Raqqa, there are training camps for foreign fighters whose mission is not to fight Daesh on the Levant but to come to France, in Europe to carry out attacks," said French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
ALAWITE HEARTLAND
The Observatory reported a new wave of Russian air strikes in the west on Friday morning on Hama and Idlib, apparently in support of the ground offensive against anti-Assad rebels.
The offensive has focused around the Ghab Plain, next to Syria's western mountain range which forms the Alawite heartland and the important strategic main north-south highway running north from Hama towards the cities of Idlib and Aleppo.
Securing those areas would help consolidate Assad's control over Syria's main population centers in the west of the country, far from the Islamic State strongholds in the east.
Abu al-Baraa, a fighter with the Ajnad al-Sham rebel group, speaking to Reuters via Internet messenger from the Ghab Plain, said: "The regime has been trying since yesterday to advance ... and tried many times, with Russian jets paving their way, but ... most of the attacks are repelled. Also a number of heavy regime vehicles have been destroyed in the Ghab region."
Alongside the Russian air-and-sea campaign, regional officials have told Reuters that hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria since late September to support the Syrian army and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.
Senior Iranian officials have been in Syria for several years as military advisers. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards said a senior general, Hossein Hamedani, was killed near Aleppo late on Thursday. Hamedani was a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war and was made deputy chief commander in 2005. Several senior Guard commanders have been killed in Syria.
Turkey said on Friday it was concerned about a possible fresh wave of Syrian migrants arriving at its border as a result of Russian air strikes. The conflict has killed 250,000 people and displaced millions, causing a refugee crisis in neighboring nations and in Europe.
(Additonal reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Peter Millership and Frances Kerry; Editing by Giles Elgood, Howard Goller and Ken Wills)
BOTTOM LINE FOR US
ReplyDeleteStay out of it.
THE PENTAGON 500 MILLION PISS-A-WAY
ReplyDeleteThe US decision to “pause” its troubled $500m (£326m) programme to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State (Isis) is yet another move highlighting western disarray and failure as Russia continues its airstrikes, which western governments say are supporting Bashar al-Assad.
The Pentagon said on Friday it was changing its strategy in Syria. It would supply “equipment packages and weapons … to a select group of vetted leaders and their units so that over time they can make a concerted push into territory still controlled by Isil,” a spokesman said, using the US acronym for the jihadi group.
The programme, the most visible element of US backing for Syrian opposition forces, has suffered embarrassing setbacks. Last month it transpired that it had trained only four or five fighters inside Syria, while others who underwent training in Turkey had surrendered to rival groups and handed over the their weapons when they crossed the border into Syria. Other covert programmes are run by the CIA.
THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES
ReplyDeleteThe Obama administration backed away Friday from a blighted effort to train Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State, as the Pentagon announced plans instead to provide direct aid to existing rebel units it believes have better odds of succeeding against the militants.
The decision is a recognition of the repeated failures of a program begun early this year. Most recently, newly trained fighters were attacked by rival forces engaged in a largely separate fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. One U.S.-trained unit decided to hand over Washington-provided equipment to the local al-Qaeda affiliate.
U.S. officials hope the revised plan will help Arab forces, allied with Syrian Kurdish fighters, replicate the success that the Kurds have had against the Islamic State in northeastern Syria and eventually isolate the group in Raqqa, its de facto Syrian capital.
“What we’re really trying to do here is build on what has worked for us and learn from some of the things that have been a lot more challenging,” Christine E. Wormuth, undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters.
Wormuth said the training program launched earlier this year has not been canceled but was put on “operational pause” and might be resumed in the future.
SAY WHAT?
ReplyDelete“What we’re really trying to do here is build on what has worked for us and learn from some of the things that have been a lot more challenging,” Christine E. Wormuth, undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters.
15 years into the Neocon Crusades and we need to recalibrate? for what? 15 more?
Anyone have any clue about what has worked for us ?
DeleteWhere did these $500 million worth of weapons end up?
ReplyDeleteYOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP>
ReplyDelete...Under the new plan, leaders of groups already battling the Islamic State undergo vetting and receive a crash course in human rights and combat communications. Many of them have already received that training outside Syria, officials said.
Eventually the Pentagon plans to provide ammunition and basic weapons to those leaders’ fighters and would carry out airstrikes on targets identified by those units. Most, if not all, of the rank and file would be neither vetted nor trained by the United States.
A crash course in human rights ????
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-plans-sharp-scaledown-in-efforts-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/10/09/78a2553c-6e80-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html
ReplyDeleteThat’s it, after 15 years of FUBARISTAN the Pentagon needs to give a course to killers and terrorists a crash course on human rights.
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking of the past. You voted for McCain, did you not ?
ReplyDeleteI know Rufus did, and has changed his name to galopin2 to cover up this misdeed.
You, and Rufus too, must have voted for George W. Bush as well.
I wish you guys would knock it off with the Neo-Con stuff, and Bush's War and all.
Quart can get away with it as he's always come across as a Democrat at heart.
I voted for Bush both times, and McCain as well.
Given what I knew then, I'd do it again.
If back then I could have visualized everything getting pissed away by Obama I would have hesitated.
Never having been an advertising executive, I like a little truth now and then in advertising.
Of course Quart too, who I am guessing voted for Obama both times, unless he really did vote for the Buddhists, has all the current troubles and chaos on his plate, having voted for total incompetence, or, as some are arguing these days, and very seriously too, out and out treason.
Let's all relax a bit with the name calling, and recognize voting is tough.
Guten Nacht
Cheers !
Perhaps the country ought to adopt a law making it a crime to reveal for whom one has voted.
DeleteIt might save us all from much discomfort down the line.
Let me help you here.
DeleteScience and progress means change. I am typing on a computer that has more computing power than every computer in the US military of 1963 when I first engaged with them.
My first computer was a wooden slide rule.
You are fundamentally a rube that does not believe in progress. To progress, one must learn, change, alter one’s view, recalibrate, refresh, relearn, reevaluate, be skeptical, challenge, take risks, edit previous beliefs, and be part of the dynamic world.
A dynamic world is part of a dynamic universe. That is my world. it is interesting, exciting and not dogmatic.
Here is the difference in our lives. Mine is evolving. Yours is corroding. Keep your mental barnacles and atrophy. I’ll do things my way. Understand?
.
ReplyDeleteBOTTOM LINE FOR US
Stay out of it.
Maybe that is what we plan to do. Maybe not. Who the heck knows with this gang that couldn't shoot straight. At a minimum, the Russkies have the administration befuddled, arguing amongst themselves, pointing fingers, and trying to figure what to do next. Or so it seems.
White House is Weighing Syrian Retreat
A week into Russia's military intervention in Syria, some top White House advisers and National Security Council staffers are trying to persuade President Barack Obama to scale back U.S. engagement there, to focus on lessening the violence and, for now, to give up on toppling the Syrian regime.
In addition, administration officials and Middle East experts on both sides of the debate tell us, Obama's foreign-policy team no longer doubts that Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to prop up President Bashar al-Assad and primarily target opposition groups other than the Islamic State, including those trained by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The administration came to this conclusion late...
Well, DUH.
These officials no longer believe Russia was telling the truth...
Ya think?
.
Delete{...}
At the same time, Obama has ruled out engaging in a proxy war with Putin's military, leaving few good options. One path, however, would mean finding ways to tamp down the fighting by negotiating small, local ceasefires with the Assad regime.
“The White House somehow thinks we can de-escalate the conflict while keeping Assad in power,” one senior administration official told us.
That view, being pushed by top White House National Security staffers, including senior coordinator for the Middle East Rob Malley, is not new. But it has received fresh emphasis given Russian intervention.
If Assad is staying and there’s no political process in sight, this argument goes, the U.S. might as well focus on alleviating the suffering of the Syrian people and mitigate the growing refugee crisis.
Local ceasefires have been struck sporadically throughout the war, mostly in areas under siege by the Assad regime. The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has been pushing this idea for over a year.
“The current policy of the United States and its partners, to increase pressure on Assad so that he ‘comes to the table’ and negotiates his own departure, must be rethought,” Malley’s predecessor at the National Security Council, Philip Gordon, wrote at Politico as Russia was amassing its forces in Syria.
The NSC view is opposed by top officials in other parts of the government, especially Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. They are trying to persuade Obama that the only way to solve Syria is to increase the pressure on Assad in the hopes he will enter negotiations...
To be continued...
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It is clear to me that Putin is pushing back at the West for the bitch-slapping given to Russia by the Neocon fueled policies of the US and UK after the Cold War ended. Putin wants respect. Russia wants respect.
ReplyDeleteRussia has a monster problem at it's belly and right flank called China. China can take most of underpopulated and resource rich Russia at a time of it's choosing.
Putin jumped the Shark in Syria. The best response is to do NOTHING in Syria. Tell the Neocons, The Pentagon and the GOP Likuds Force that fun and games is over. Let Russia and Syria sort it out.
Tell Israel that is they fuck with Iran or Syria, they are alone. They have the bad ass IDF and they have their own arms industry. There is also the nascent Judaic fervor for the Saudis and the Egyptians. Excellent. They live there. Let them tend to their own business.
The US has real interests in Europe. Europe needs to think about the baltic States and the Eastern European States and firm them up with some military steel teeth.
Forget Ukraine. That is a legitimate traditional area of Russian interests.
The Russians will be in Syrian for ten years cleaning up the mess and dealing with the Islamic crazies. If Iraq (likely) and Iran (unlikely) get tight with Russia. So what?
Mind our own US business. Russia will wake up to the fact that Russia needs the West to rebuff future Chines aggression against Russia.
P.S.
A tripolar World will be preferable anyway and in case anyone has not noticed, we suck at Empire.
Our military is much better at burning money by the bazillions than winning wars.
The US middle and working class have been neglected long enough.
Agreed. We've done a good job up in the Kurdish areas; we should continue with that.
ReplyDeleteBombing the daesh in Iraq doesn't cost much, and has helped to keep their advance somewhat contained; we can continue with that.
Otherwise, have a nice freakin' day, boys. Have fun.
Jeez Louise it seems like my "disengage and let them sort it out" meme is starting to take hold though Rufus mostly, and b00bie (of course) , still want to play in that awful sandbox, even if their playmates are Russian
ReplyDeleteRussia ran their empire on the rocks in Afghanistan and now, after painful restructuring, seem intent on testing the depths of the ME sandbar. I wish them the best of luck in stopping all the killing but I don't believe that is their goal - black gold, bubbling crude, animates them just lije it does Galopn2. Greedy immoral fools that they are.
I don't think they'll succeed in that sectarian killing stew any better than we did. Obama got it right - 'it's a mistake what Put in is doing'