Syria Crisis: Russian Air Strikes Against Assad Enemies.……

Russia has begun car­ry­ing out airstrikes in Syria against oppo­nents of President Bashar al-Assad.

The strikes report­ed­ly hit rebel-con­trolled areas of Homs and Hama provinces, caus­ing casu­al­ties. The US says it was informed an hour before they took place. Russian defence offi­cials say air­craft car­ried out about 20 mis­sions tar­get­ing Islamic State, but US offi­cials said that so far they did not appear to be tar­get­ing IS-held territory.

Syria’s civ­il war has raged for four years, with an array of armed groups fight­ing to over­throw the gov­ern­ment. The US and its allies have insist­ed that President Assad should leave office, while Russia has backed its ally remain­ing in pow­er. The upper house of the Russian par­lia­ment ear­li­er grant­ed President Vladimir Putin per­mis­sion to deploy the Russian air force in Syria.

The Russian defence min­istry said the coun­try’s air force had tar­get­ed IS mil­i­tary equip­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tion facil­i­ties, arms depots, ammu­ni­tion and fuel sup­plies — and did not hit civil­ian infra­struc­ture or areas nearby.

Syrian oppo­si­tion activists said Russian war­planes had hit towns includ­ing Zafaraneh, Rastan and Talbiseh, result­ing in the deaths of 36 peo­ple, a num­ber of them chil­dren. None of the areas tar­get­ed were con­trolled by IS, activists said. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States was pre­pared to wel­come Russian mil­i­tary action in Syria — but only as long as it was direct­ed against IS and al-Qaeda-linked groups. Speaking at the United Nations Security Council, Mr Kerry said the US would have “grave con­cerns” if Russia con­duct­ed strikes against oth­er groups. He said the US-led coali­tion against IS would “dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­ate our efforts” and that the US was pre­pared to hold talks with Russia about avoid­ing acci­den­tal con­flicts between the two air strike cam­paigns “as ear­ly as possible”.

Analysis: Jonathan Marcus, defence and diplomatic correspondent

Russia’s deci­sion to inter­vene with its air pow­er great­ly com­pli­cates the Syrian cri­sis while prob­a­bly offer­ing lit­tle addi­tion­al chance of a diplo­mat­ic res­o­lu­tion. Russian sources indi­cate that Sukhoi Su-24 war­planes were involved, oper­at­ing out of an air­base near Latakia. There are seri­ous ques­tions about who exact­ly the Russian air­craft are tar­get­ing. US offi­cials believe that the ini­tial Russian strikes are not in IS-held ter­ri­to­ry, rais­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Russian air pow­er is being utilised more in the form of close air sup­port for Syrian gov­ern­ment forces against the mul­ti­ple ene­mies of the Assad régime. Of course, many of these ene­mies are sup­port­ed by the West’s Arab allies or Turkey. The warn­ing time giv­en by the Russians to the Americans announc­ing the start of their oper­a­tions may also raise some eye­brows, sug­gest­ing that much more detailed co-ordi­na­tion may be need­ed in future to avoid inci­dents in Syrian airspace.

In a tele­vised address, Mr Putin said the air strikes were tar­get­ing Islamist mil­i­tants — includ­ing Russian cit­i­zens — who have tak­en over large parts of Syria and Iraq. “If they [mil­i­tants] suc­ceed in Syria, they will return to their home coun­try, and they will come to Russia, too,” he said. He added that Russia was not going to send ground troops to Syria, and that its role in Syrian army oper­a­tions would be limited.

“We cer­tain­ly are not going to plunge head-on into this con­flict… we will be sup­port­ing the Syrian army pure­ly in its legit­i­mate fight with ter­ror­ist groups.” Mr Putin also said he expect­ed President Assad to talk with the Syrian oppo­si­tion about a polit­i­cal set­tle­ment, but clar­i­fied that he was refer­ring to what he described as “healthy” oppo­si­tion groups. A US defence offi­cial said: “A Russian offi­cial in Baghdad this morn­ing informed US embassy per­son­nel that Russian mil­i­tary air­craft would begin fly­ing anti-Isil [IS] mis­sions today over Syria. He fur­ther request­ed that US air­craft avoid Syrian air­space dur­ing these mis­sions.” US state depart­ment spokesman John Kirby told reporters: “The US-led coali­tion will con­tin­ue to fly mis­sions over Iraq and Syria as planned and in sup­port of our inter­na­tion­al mis­sion to degrade and destroy Isil [IS].”

Syria’s civil war

What’s the human cost?

More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed and a mil­lion injured in four-and-a-half years of armed con­flict, which began with anti-gov­ern­ment protests before esca­lat­ing into a full-scale civ­il war.

And the survivors?

More than 11 mil­lion oth­ers have been forced from their homes, four mil­lion of them abroad, as forces loy­al to President Assad and those opposed to his rule bat­tle each oth­er — as well as jihadist mil­i­tants from IS and oth­er groups. Growing num­bers of refugees are going to Europe.

How has the world reacted?

Regional and world pow­ers have also been drawn into the con­flict. Iran and Russia, along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah move­ment, are prop­ping up the Alawite-led gov­ern­ment. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are back­ing the Sunni-dom­i­nat­ed oppo­si­tion, along with the US, UK and France.
See sto­ry here : http://​www​.bbc​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​w​o​r​l​d​-​m​i​d​d​l​e​-​e​a​s​t​-​3​4​3​9​9​164