Russia launches first airstrikes

against targets in Syria

Russian defence spokesman says equipment belonging to terrorists hit,
though there are fears that all anti-Assad forces are being targeted, and
not just Isis

Object 1

Amateur footage appears to show Russian airstrikes hitting targets in the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday.

Shaun Walker in Moscow,Kareem Shaheen in Beirut

and Spencer Ackerman in New York-Wednesday 30 September 2015

Russia has launched its first airstrikes against targets in Syria, two days
after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, spoke to the UN and called for
an international coalition against terrorism to fight Islamic State.
However, there was concern among rebel groups and in the west
that Russia was targeting all forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad,
rather than focusing on Isis. A US official said the Americans were working
on Wednesday to determine which groups the Russian bombing actually hit
and whether US-backed Syrian forces were affected.
A spokesman for Russias defence ministry confirmed Russia had hit military
and communication equipment belonging to terrorists in the country on

Wednesday afternoon.
Speaking outside Moscow on Wednesday, Putin said Russia would not
plunge headfirst into the conflict, but would provide temporary air
support for a Syrian army offensive.
At the Pentagon, US officials said the strikes did not appear to be targeting
areas held by Isis forces, and signalled deep dissatisfaction with Russia,
piercing the veneer of cooperation that Barack Obama and Putin sought to
establish at the United Nations this week.
A day after the Pentagon announced that the US defence chief, Ashton
Carter, was establishing a communications channel with his Russian
counterpart, Sergei Shoygu, to deconflict any overlapping airstrikes,
Russian officials told US diplomats in Baghdad that the Americans should
avoid Syrian airspace during a Russian operation of uncertain duration. US
officials rejected the demand.
A US defence official said: While we would welcome a constructive role by
Russia in this effort [to deconflict strikes], todays demarche hardly seems
indicative of that sort of role and will in no way alter our operations. He
added that the strikes underscored the need for meaningful deconfliction
discussions very soon.
Syrian rebels and opposition media outlets claimed that Russian aircraft
carried out strikes in the central provinces of Homs and Hama that allegedly
killed at least 24 people.
Activists in Hama said Russian fighter jets targeted the town of Lataminah,
north of the city. The Homs Media Centre, a pro-opposition media outlet,
identified 22 individuals killed in what was described as Russian strikes in
the town of Talbiseh, in the north of the province. It was not possible to
immediately verify these claims.
Other video footage from Hama showed warplanes that the opposition said
were Russian jets, but which were difficult to identify positively from a
distance.

A commander with a Syrian rebel group known as Tajammu al Izzah, which

operates in northern Hama and claims allegiance to the umbrella group the
Free Syrian Army, said his organisations headquarters were targeted by
Russian warplanes.
If true, the attacks are an indication that Russias campaign in Syria will be
more expansive and will target opposition fighters battling to topple the
Assad regime, rather than focusing on Islamic State.
The apparent geography of the strikes also raises doubts that US and
Russian pilots would in fact risk a confrontation. The early reports from the
anti-Assad activists in Hama and Homs suggest the strikes occurred further
west than the US has ever bombed, deep into territory where the Assad
regime still maintains a tenuous hold, and in likely range of its air defences.
The US has tended not to strike territory where Isis and Assad actively vie
for control.
The US official did not provide confirmation of the Russian targets, nor any
assessment of their effectiveness. Yet the official said that the Russians
indicated, through a communication delivered to the US embassy in
Baghdad, that Wednesdays strikes inaugurated a Russian air campaign, not
a one-off bombing run the fruit of an aggressive Russian buildup centred
around the air base in Latakia that has prompted intrigue and concern in
the west as to Russias goals.
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, the defence official said.
The UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said the impact of the Russian
strikes would depend on their targets, which Britain had yet to establish.
These are the first Russian strikes and the targets will be symbolic. The
targets wont have been selected by accident, Hammond told journalists
shortly before a Russian-chaired session of the UN security council on the
issue. If they have selected a target that is clearly an Isil target away from

regime strength, theyll be sending us a signal that they want this

intervention to be seen as a counter-Isil intervention.
Hammond added: If they are in an area where there are heavy regime
engagements going on, that will send a much more mixed message. If
theyre in an area where theres no Isil it will send a very clear message
that the intervention is there to support Assad.
Earlier on Wednesday, Putin received permission from parliament for
Russian forces to take part in the bombing raids. The federation council,
Russias upper house of parliament, held a swift, closed session on
Wednesday morning in which it unanimously approved Putins request.
Putin said in New York that Russia would not carry out ground operations in
Syria, and his chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, emphasised this again on
Wednesday, saying the request to the federation council referred
exclusively to airstrikes. He did not give any figures of the number of planes
likely to be involved or the number of Russian military specialists on the
ground inside Syria to back up the operation.
You all know well that in the territory of Syria and Iraq a number of
countries are carrying out bombing strikes, including the United States,
said Ivanov. These actions do not conform with international law. To be
legal they should be supported either by a resolution of the UN security
council, or be backed by a request from the country where the raids are
taking place.
Ivanov said Assad had asked Russia for military assistance, making Russias
actions legitimate.
Putin had told the UN the world should come together to fight Islamic State
in the same way as it joined forces to fight Hitler in the second world war,
though differences between Russia and the west over the role and fate of
Assad have always made it unlikely that a broad coalition will emerge.
Instead, it is more likely that the US and other western countries will allow
Russia to act but watch on warily. Some western countries have softened

their stance that Assad must go as part of a peace settlement, but remain
uneasy with Putins heroic characterisation of Assad as the last bulwark
against terrorism.
Putin spent 90 minutes in a bilateral meeting with the US president, Barack
Obama, after his speech to the UN general assembly, about half of which
was spent discussing Syria.
Im not waiting for any reaction from the west and Im not particularly
interested in it. There will be cries, hysterics, then there will be realpolitik
and maybe understanding, Evgeny Satanovsky, the head of the Russian
Middle East Institute, told Russian television.

Object 2

Putin last asked the federation council to authorise the use of troops abroad
in March 2014, prior to the annexation of Crimea. The resolution was
withdrawn by the Kremlin in June, although it was only in August that largescale evidence emerged of Russian troops in east Ukraine. Russia has
continually denied using troops in Ukraine.
Posted by Thavam