Russian boots on the ground in Syria, fighting for Assad

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-troops-join-combat-in-syria/529831.html

Russian Troops Join Combat in Syria

MOSCOW / BEIRUT / WASHINGTON — Russian forces have begun participating in military operations in Syria in support of government troops, three Lebanese sources familiar with the political and military situation there said on Wednesday.

The sources, speaking to Reuters on condition they not be identified, gave the most forthright account yet from the region of what U.S. officials say appears to be a new military buildup by Moscow, one of President Bashar Assad's main allies, though one of the sources said the numbers of Russians involved so far were small.

Two U.S. officials said Russia has sent two tank landing ships and additional aircraft to Syria in the past day or so and has deployed a small number of naval infantry forces.

The U.S. officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the intent of Russia's military moves in Syria remained unclear. One of the officials said initial indications suggested the focus was on preparing an airfield near the port city of Latakia, an Assad stronghold.

The moves come at a time when forces of Assad's government have faced major setbacks on the battlefield in a four-year-old multi-sided civil war that has killed 250,000 people and driven half of Syria's 23 million people from their homes.

Syrian troops pulled out of a major air base on Wednesday, and a monitoring group said this meant government soldiers were no longer present at all in Idlib province, most of which slipped from government control earlier this year.

Moscow confirmed it had "experts" on the ground.

But Russia has declined to comment on the exact scale and scope of its military presence in Syria. Damascus denied Russians were involved in combat, but a Syrian official said the presence of experts had increased in the past year.

Officials in the United States, which is fighting an air war against the Islamist militant group the Islamic State in Syria and also opposes Assad's government, have said in recent days that they suspect Russia is reinforcing to aid Assad.

Washington has put pressure on countries nearby to deny their air space to Russian flights, a move Moscow denounced on Wednesday as "international boorishness."

Moscow's only naval base in the Mediterranean is at Tartus on the Syrian coast in territory held by Assad, and keeping it secure would be an important strategic objective for the Kremlin.

Two of the Lebanese sources said the Russians were establishing two bases in Syria, one near the coast and one further inland which would be an operations base.

"The Russians are no longer just advisers," one of them said. "The Russians have decided to join the war against terrorism."

Another of the Lebanese sources said that so far any Russian combat role was still small: "They have started in small numbers, but the bigger force did not yet take part ... There are numbers of Russians taking part in Syria but they did not yet join the fight against terrorism strongly."

The Syrian official said: "Russian experts are always present but in the last year they have been present to a greater degree."

Reflecting Western concern, Germany's foreign minister warned Russia against increased military intervention in Syria, saying the Iran nuclear deal and new U.N. initiatives offered a starting point for a political solution to the conflict.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said reports of growing Russian military activity in Syria were a cause for concern, while France said it made finding a political solution to the crisis more complicated.

Thus far in the war, Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah have the main sources of military support for Assad, but momentum turned against him earlier this year.

In the latest major battlefield setback, state television reported government troops had surrendered an air base in northwestern Syria to a rebel alliance after nearly two years under siege.

The loss of the base meant the last government troops had now withdrawn altogether from central Idlib province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that monitors the conflict.

Coalitions of rebels, who range from hardline Sunni Islamists like al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate the Nusra Front to more secular nationalists, have made gains in the northwest and southwest of the country. They often fight against both the government and Islamic State fighters who control much of the east of Syria as well as northern Iraq.

Russia says the Syrian government must be incorporated into a shared global fight against Islamic State. The United States and Assad's regional foes see him as part of the problem.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said Moscow would consider additional military measures needed for fighting terrorism in Syria if it deemed them necessary.

'Worrisome'

A senior U.S. official said on Saturday Washington had detected "worrisome preparatory steps," including transport of prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to a Syrian airfield, that could signal that Russia is readying deployment of heavy military assets there.

Russia has in recent days set out the case for supporting Assad in the most forthright terms yet, likening the Western approach to Syria to failures in Iraq and Libya.

Part of the diplomatic quarrel has centred around use of air space for flights, which Moscow says bring humanitarian aid but U.S. officials say may be bringing military supplies.

To avoid flying over Turkey, one of Assad's main enemies, Russia has sought to fly planes over Balkan states, but Washington has urged them to deny Moscow permission.

On Tuesday Bulgaria refused a Russian request to use its airspace for flights due to doubts about the cargo on board. It said on Wednesday it would allow Russian supply flights to Syria to use its airspace only if Moscow agreed to checks of their cargo at a Bulgarian airport.

Turkey has not officially confirmed a ban on Russian flights to Syria but says it considers any requests to fly over its air space to Syria on a case by case basis.

Fallen Base

On Wednesday the Syrian army withdrew completely from Idlib province after insurgents captured the Abu al-Duhur military airport there, said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory. Members of a local pro-government militia remained in just two Shiite villages in the province, he said.

Rebel sources said the Nusra Front had played a leading role in the capture of the airport. Nusra is part of a coalition of Islamist groups called the Army of Conquest which has seized most of Idlib province this year.

Syrian state television said in a news flash that the army garrison that had defended the military airport had evacuated.

Another major base east of Aleppo, Kweiris, is currently besieged by ultra-hardline Islamic State militants.

Nusra Front made gains in northwestern Syria alongside other insurgent groups since May, seizing the city of Idlib, the town of Jisr al-Shughour and moving closer to coastal areas vital to government control of western Syria.

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/lavrov-warns-of-incidents-between-us-and-russian-military-in-syria/529992.html

Lavrov Warns of 'Incidents' Between U.S. and Russian Military in Syria

Russia called on Friday for Washington to restart direct military-to-military cooperation to avert "unintended incidents" near Syria, at a time when U.S. officials say Moscow is building up forces to protect President Bashar Assad's government.

The United States is leading a campaign of air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syrian air space, and a greater Russian presence would raise the prospect of the Cold War superpower foes encountering each other on the battlefield.

Both Moscow and Washington say their enemy is Islamic State. But Russia supports the government of Assad, while the United States says his presence makes the situation worse.

In recent days, U.S. officials have described what they say is a buildup of Russian equipment and manpower.

Lebanese sources said at least some Russian troops were now engaged in combat operations in support of Assad's government. Moscow has declined to comment on those reports.

At a news conference, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was sending equipment to help Assad fight Islamic State. Russian servicemen were in Syria, he said, primarily to help service that equipment and teach Syrian soldiers how to use it.

Russia was also conducting naval exercises in the eastern Mediterranean, he said, describing the drills as long-planned and staged in accordance with international law.

Lavrov blamed Washington for cutting off direct military-to-military communications between Russia and NATO over the Ukraine crisis, saying such contacts were "important for the avoidance of undesired, unintended incidents."

"We are always in favor of military people talking to each other in a professional way. They understand each other very well," Lavrov said. "If, as [U.S. Secretary of State] John Kerry has said many times, the United States wants those channels frozen, then be our guest."

U.S. officials say they do not know what Moscow's intentions are in Syria. The reports of a Russian buildup come at a time when momentum has shifted against Assad's government in Syria's 4-year-old civil war, with Damascus suffering battlefield setbacks this year at the hands of an array of insurgent groups.

Moscow, Assad's ally since the Cold War, maintains its only Mediterranean naval base at Tartous on the Syrian coast, a strategic objective.

In recent months NATO-member Turkey has also raised the prospect of outside powers playing a greater role in Syria by proposing a "safe zone" near its border, kept free of both Islamic State and government troops.

Common Enemy
The four-year-old multi-sided civil war in Syria has killed around 250,000 people and driven half of Syria's 23 million people from their homes. Some have traveled to European Union countries, creating a refugee crisis there.

Differences over Assad's future have made it impossible for Moscow and the West to take joint action against Islamic State, even though they say the group, which rules a self-proclaimed caliphate on swathes of Syria and Iraq, is their common enemy.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday that it was too early to judge what exactly Russia's motivations at present were in Syria, but that "adding war to war" would not help resolve the Syrian conflict.

"If it's about defending the base in Tartous why not? But if it's to enter the conflict ...." he said, without finishing the thought.

Bargaining Power
Diplomats in Moscow say the Kremlin is happy for the West to believe it is building up its military in Syria, calculating that this will give it more bargaining power in any international talks about whether Assad stays in power.

Western and Arab countries have backed demands from the Syrian opposition that Assad must give way under any negotiated settlement to the war. Assad refuses to go and so far his enemies have lacked the capability to force him out, leaving the war grinding on for years. All diplomatic efforts at a solution have collapsed.

Assad's supporters have taken encouragement this week from an apparent shift in tone from some European states that suggests a softening of demands he leave power.

Britain, one of Assad's staunchest Western opponents, said this week it could accept him staying in place for a transition period if it helped resolve the conflict.

France, another fierce Assad opponent, said on Monday that he must leave power "at some point or another." Smaller countries went further, with Austria saying Assad must be involved in the fight against Islamic State and Spain saying negotiations with him were necessary to end the war.

The pro-Syrian government newspaper al-Watan saw Britain's position as "a new sign of the changes in Western positions that started with Madrid and Austria."

[Valmy]

We are just fighting ISIS right? Might as well make sure we do not accidentally blow up Russians.

[derspiess]

As hilarious as it would be to blow some up, yeah I mostly agree.

[mongers]

Has Putin flipped his lid? There's no way this is going to be effective enough to save Assad. If ISIS doesn't pull him down, Al Nusra and/or the FSA will.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/01/russia-puts-boots-on-the-ground-in-syria.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-civil-war-russians-filmed-fighting-alongside-president-assads-forces-10483842.html

Tim, I think you called that wrong?

[Tonitrus]

https://www.polygraph.info/a/us-wagner-russia-syria-scores-killed/29044339.html

Below is an English transcript of the audio recordings and the actual audio clips in Russian with English captions:

The first audio clip:

"The reports that are on TV about ... well, you know, about Syria and the 25 people that are wounded there from the Syrian f*** Army and -- well ... to make it short, we've had our asses f*** kicked. So, one squadron f**** lost 200 people ...right away, another one lost 10 people... and I don't know about the third squadron but it got torn up pretty badly, too... So three squadrons took a beating... The Yankees attacked... first they blasted the f*** out of us by artillery and then they took four helicopters up and pushed us in a f*** merry-go-round with heavy caliber machine guns....They were all shelling the holy f*** out of it and our guys didn't have anything besides the assault rifles... nothing at all, not even mentioning shoulder-fired SAMs or anything like that...So they tore us to pieces for sure, put us through hell, and the Yankees knew for sure that the Russians were coming, that it was us, f*** Russians... Our guys were going to commandeer an oil refinery and the Yankees were holding it... We got our f**** asses beat rough, my men called me... They're there drinking now... many have gone missing... it's a total f***-up, it sucks, another takedown....Everybody, you know, treats us like pieces of sh*** ... They beat our asses like we were little pieces of sh***... but our f*** government will go in reverse now and nobody will respond or anything and nobody will punish anyone for this... So these are our casualties...

[Habbaku]

The rebellion was tainted. 

[KRonn]

As if it wasn't already messy enough, now it looks like actual combat between Russians and Americans. Or at least Russian soldiers against US backed fighters. And who are these fighters the US is backing anyway? Then Turks in northern Syria fighting against Kurdish groups which may be US backed, or at the least other Kurdish groups are backed by the US.  Though Kurds aren't getting the supplies and weapons and probably never were as the US tried to work with Iraqi govt. to give supplies to Kurds. And of course that didn't work so well.