|
|
SYRIA
Jun 19, 2017 22:23:47 GMT 12
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 19, 2017 22:23:47 GMT 12
from The Washington Post....U.S. aircraft shoots down a Syrian government jet
over northern Syria, Pentagon saysIt is the latest escalation with the Syrian government.By THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF and KARREEM FAHIM | 6:21PM EDT - Sunday, June 18, 2017 A formation of U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets leaves after receiving fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker over northern Iraq.
— Photograph: Staff Sergeant Shawn Nickel/U.S. Air Force.A U.S. STRIKE AIRCRAFT shot down a Syrian government fighter jet on Sunday shortly after the Syrians bombed U.S.-backed fighters in northern Syria, the Pentagon said in a statement.
The Pentagon said the downing of the aircraft came hours after Syrian loyalist forces attacked U.S.-backed fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the village of Ja'Din, southwest of Raqqa. The rare attack was the first time a U.S. jet has shot down a manned hostile aircraft in more than a decade, and it signaled the United States' sharply intensifying role in Syria's war.
The incident is the fourth time within a month that the U.S. military has attacked pro-Syrian government forces.
A statement distributed by the Syrian military said that the aircraft's lone pilot was killed in the attack and that the jet was carrying out a mission against the Islamic State.
“The attack stresses co-ordination between the US and ISIS, and it reveals the evil intentions of the US in administrating terrorism and investing it to pass the US-Zionist project in the region,” the Syrian statement said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
Before it downed the Syrian plane, the U.S. military used a “deconfliction” channel to communicate with Russia, Syria’s main ally, to prevent the situation from escalating, the Pentagon said.
U.S.-led jets stopped the fighting by flying close to the ground and at a low speed in what is called a “show of force,” the Pentagon said.
About two hours later, despite the calls to stand down and the U.S. presence overhead, a Syrian Su-22 jet attacked the Syrian Democratic Forces, dropping an unknown number of munitions on the U.S.-backed force. Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said that the Syrian aircraft arrived with little warning and that U.S. aircraft nearby tried to hail the Syrian jet after it had dropped its bombs. Thomas also said U.S. forces were in the area but were not directly threatened.
After the hailing attempts, a U.S. F/A-18 shot down the Syrian aircraft “in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of coalition partnered forces,” the Pentagon said.
Thomas rejected the Syrian government's claims that the aircraft was bombing the Islamic State, adding that Ja'Din is controlled by Syrian Democratic Forces and that the militant group had not been in the area for some time.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of predominantly Arab and Kurdish fighters, is a key proxy force for the U.S.-led coalition in Syria. The fighters were instrumental in retaking towns and villages from the Islamic State in recent months and are fighting to retake the group's de-facto capital of Raqqa. Also on Sunday, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that it had launched a rare cross-border missile attack against Islamic State militants in eastern Syria. The missile strikes, launched from Iran, were in retaliation for twin Islamic State attacks earlier this month in Tehran on the parliament and the tomb of the leader of Iran's Islamic revolution that killed 18 people, according to a statement carried by Iran's official news agency.
The missile attacks had targeted a militant command center and other facilities in Deir Ez-Zour, a contested region in eastern Syria, where the United States, Iran and other powers and proxy forces are fighting for control. The strikes had killed “a large number” of militants and destroyed equipment and weapons, the statement said.
Earlier this month, a U.S. jet downed a pro-Syrian government drone that dropped an apparent dud munition near U.S.-led coalition forces near the southern Syrian town of At Tanf. U.S.-led forces have increased their presence in Tanf to deter pro-Syrian government forces in the area. Iran-backed Shiite militias, along with other pro-Syrian government forces, have steadily advanced around At Tanf despite repeated warnings from the U.S. military.
At Tanf is a key town on the Iraq-Syrian border that has been home to a U.S. special operations training outpost for months.
“The coalition's mission is to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria,” the Pentagon's statement said. “The coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian, or pro-regime forces partnered with them, but will not hesitate to defend coalition or partner forces from any threat.”• Kareem Fahim reported from Istanbul. Louisa Loveluck contributed to this report from Beirut.• Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a staff writer at The Washington Post and a former Marine infantryman.• Kareem Fahim is a Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post.www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/18/a-u-s-aircraft-has-shot-down-a-syrian-government-jet-over-northern-syria-pentagon-says
|
|
|
|
SYRIA
Jun 20, 2017 9:15:34 GMT 12
Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 20, 2017 9:15:34 GMT 12
And Russia declared last night it is now open slather,their aircraft will shoot down anything flying, especially US aircraft. WWIII here we come.
|
|
|
|
SYRIA
Jun 20, 2017 9:36:07 GMT 12
Post by ErrolC on Jun 20, 2017 9:36:07 GMT 12
And Russia declared last night it is now open slather,their aircraft will shoot down anything flying, especially US aircraft. WWIII here we come. I understand that this is just re-stating the existing demarcation of areas in such a way as to sound aggressive and impressive. |
|
|
|
SYRIA
Jun 20, 2017 9:56:37 GMT 12
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 20, 2017 9:56:37 GMT 12
|
|
|
|
SYRIA
Jun 20, 2017 10:18:58 GMT 12
Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 20, 2017 10:18:58 GMT 12
I must have read some of Trump's famous fake news, Errol.
|
|
|
|
SYRIA
Jun 20, 2017 17:40:41 GMT 12
Post by The Red Baron on Jun 20, 2017 17:40:41 GMT 12
|
|
|
|
SYRIA
Jun 20, 2017 20:30:45 GMT 12
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 20, 2017 20:30:45 GMT 12
And I see Iran just launched multiple long-range guided missile strikes against ISIS targets in retaliation for the terrorist attacks in Tehran. I reckon any western country who gets involved in that quagmire is simply asking for trouble. |
|
|
|
SYRIA
Jun 20, 2017 21:34:50 GMT 12
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 20, 2017 21:34:50 GMT 12
from The Washington Post....Iran calls missile attack on Syria militants a wider warningBy NASSER KARIMI and JON GAMBRELL | 9:46AM EDT - Monday, June 19, 2017 In this picture released by the Iranian state-run IRIB News Agency on Monday, June 19th, 2017, a missile is fired from city of Kermanshah in
western Iran targeting the Islamic State group in Syria. Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force in charge of the country's
missile program, said it launched six Zolfaghar ballistic missiles from the western provinces of Kermanshah and Kurdistan.
— Photograph: Morteza Fakhrinejad/IRIB News Agency/Associated Press.TEHRAN, IRAN — Iran says its ballistic missile strike targeting the Islamic State group in Syria was not only a response to deadly attacks in Tehran, but a powerful message to archrival Saudi Arabia and the United States, one that could add to already soaring regional tensions.
The launch, which hit Syria's eastern city of Deir el-Zour on Sunday night, appeared to be Iran's first missile attack abroad in over 15 years and its first in the Syrian conflict, in which it has provided crucial support to embattled President Bashar Assad.
It comes amid the worsening of a long-running feud between Shiite powerhouse Iran and Saudi Arabia, with supports Syrian rebels and has led recent efforts to isolate the Gulf nation of Qatar.
It also raises questions about how U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, which had previously put Iran “on notice” for its ballistic missile tests, will respond.
Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force in charge of the country's missile program, said it launched six Zolfaghar ballistic missiles from the western provinces of Kermanshah and Kurdistan. State television footage showed the missiles on truck missile launchers in the daylight before being launched at night.
The missiles flew over Iraq before striking what the Guard called an Islamic State command center and suicide car bomb operation in Deir el-Zour, over 600 kilometers (370 miles) away. The extremists have been trying to fortify their positions in the Syrian city in the face of a U.S.-led coalition onslaught on Raqqa, the group's de facto capital.
Syrian opposition activist Omar Abu Laila, who is based in Germany but closely follows events in his native Deir el-Zour, said two Iranian missiles fell near and inside the eastern town of Mayadeen, an Islamic State stronghold. He said there were no casualties from the strikes. The IS group did not immediately acknowledge the strikes.
Iraqi lawmaker Abdul-Bari Zebari said his country agreed to the missile overflight after co-ordination with Iran, Russia and Syria.
The Guard described the missile strike as revenge for attacks on Tehran earlier this month that killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 50, the first such IS assault in the country.
But the missiles sent a message to more than just the extremists in Iraq and Syria, General Ramazan Sharif of the Guard told state television in a telephone interview.
“The Saudis and Americans are especially receivers of this message,” he said. “Obviously and clearly, some reactionary countries of the region, especially Saudi Arabia, had announced that they are trying to bring insecurity into Iran.”
Sunday's missile strike came amid recent confrontations in Syria between U.S.-backed forces and pro-government factions. The U.S. recently deployed a truck-mounted missile system into Syria as Assad's forces cut off the advance of America-backed rebels along the Iraqi border. Meanwhile, the U.S. on Sunday shot down a Syrian aircraft for the first time, marking a new escalation of the conflict as Russia warned it would consider any U.S.-led coalition planes in Syria west of the Euphrates River to be targets.
The Zolfaghar missile, unveiled in September 2016, was described at the time as carrying a cluster warhead and being able to strike as far as 700 kilometers (435 miles) away.
That puts the missile in range of the forward headquarters of the U.S. military's Central Command in Qatar, American bases in the United Arab Emirates and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain.
The missile also could strike Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. While Iran has other ballistic missiles it says can reach longer distances, Sunday's strike appears to be the furthest carried out abroad. Iran's last foreign missile strike is believed to have been carried out in April 2001, targeting an exiled Iranian group in Iraq.
Iran has described the Tehran attackers as being “long affiliated with the Wahhabi,” an ultra-conservative form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. However, it stopped short of directly blaming the kingdom for the attack, though many in the country have expressed suspicion that Iran's regional rival had a hand in the assault.
Since Trump took office, his administration has put new economic sanctions on those allegedly involved with Iran's missile program as the Senate has voted for applying new sanctions on Iran. However, the test launches haven't affected Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Israel is also concerned about Iran's missile launches and has deployed a multi-layered missile-defense system. When Iran unveiled the Zolfaghar in 2016, it bore a banner printed with a 2013 quote by Khamenei saying that Iran will annihilate the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa should Israel attack Iran.
Israeli security officials said on Monday they were studying the missile strike to see what they could learn about its accuracy and capabilities. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
“We are following their actions. And we are also following their words,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “And I have one message to Iran: Do not threaten Israel.”
Iranian officials meanwhile offered a series of threats of more strikes, including former Guard chief General Mohsen Rezai. He wrote on Twitter: “The bigger slap is yet to come.”• Associated Press news story — Jon Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut, Josef Federman and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad contributed to this report.__________________________________________________________________________ Related stories:
• U.S. risks further battles as it steps deeper into Syrian quagmire
• Iran's Revolutionary Guard strikes ISIS in Syria for Tehran attacks
• Iraqi premier on anti-terror outreach to Saudi Arabia, Iran
• Iran, China hold joint naval drill in Persian Gulfwww.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/irans-revolutionary-guard-strikes-syria-for-tehran-attacks/2017/06/18/0c764970-549f-11e7-840b-512026319da7_story.html |
|
|
|
SYRIA
Jun 22, 2017 21:41:16 GMT 12
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 22, 2017 21:41:16 GMT 12
from The Washington Post....U.S. on collision course with Syria and Iran once de facto Islamic State capital fallsThe White House and Pentagon are debating the next stage of war against the group.By KAREN DeYOUNG and GREG JAFFE | 7:42PM EDT - Wednesday, June 21, 2017 Graduates of a U.S.-trained Syrian police force, which expects to be deployed in Raqqa, salute during a graduation ceremony on Saturday
near Ain Issa village, north of the de facto Islamic State capital in Syria. — Photograph: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters.TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS, anticipating the defeat of the Islamic State in its de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa, are planning for what they see as the next stage of the war, a complex fight that will bring them into direct conflict with Syrian government and Iranian forces contesting control of a vast desert stretch in the eastern part of the country.
To some extent, that clash has already begun. Unprecedented recent U.S. strikes against regime and Iranian-backed militia forces have been intended as warnings to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Tehran that they will not be allowed to confront or impede the Americans and their local proxy forces.
As regime and militia forces have begun advancing eastward, senior White House officials have been pushing the Pentagon to establish outposts in the desert region. The goal would be to prevent a Syrian or Iranian military presence that would interfere with the U.S. military's ability to break the Islamic State's hold on the Euphrates River valley south of Raqqa and into Iraq — a sparsely populated area where the militants could regroup and continue to plan terrorist operations against the West.
Officials said Syrian government claims on the area would also undermine progress toward a political settlement in the long-separate rebel war against Assad, intended to stabilize the country by limiting his control and eventually driving him from power.
The wisdom and need for such a strategy — effectively inserting the United States in Syria's civil war, after years of trying to stay out of it, and risking direct confrontation with Iran and Russia, Assad's other main backer — has been a subject of intense debate between the White House and the Pentagon. Some in the Pentagon have resisted the move, amid concern about distractions from the campaign against the Islamic State and whether U.S. troops put in isolated positions in Syria, or those in proximity to Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, could be protected. European allies in the anti-Islamic State coalition have also questioned whether U.S.-trained Syrians, now being recruited and trained to serve as a southern ground-force vanguard, are sufficient in number or capability to succeed.
One White House official, among several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Syria planning, dismissed such concerns, saying: “If you're worried that any incident anywhere could cause Iran to take advantage of vulnerable U.S. forces … if you don't think America has real interests that are worth fighting for, then fine.”
The official said the expanded U.S. role would not require more troops, comparing it to “The Rat Patrol”, the 1960s television series about small, allied desert forces deployed against the Germans in northern Africa during World War II.
“With our ability with air power … you're not talking about a lot of requirements to do that,” the official said. “… You don't need a lot of forces to go out and actually have a presence.”
This official and others played down reports of tensions over Syria strategy. “No one disagrees about the strategy or the objectives,” said a second White House official. “The question is how best to operationalize it.”
The Pentagon, not the White House, made the decision to shoot down Iranian drones and a Syrian fighter jet in response to their approaches to or attacks against U.S. forces and their Syrian allies, this official said. “They shot down an enemy aircraft for the first time in more than a decade. That's accepting a high level of risk,” the official said. “… We've done quite a lot since April that the previous administration said was impossible without the conflict spiraling.”
Ilan Goldenberg, a former senior Pentagon official now in charge of the Center for a New American Security's Middle East program, agreed that the Obama administration “over-agonized” about every decision in Syria.
But Goldenberg faulted the Trump administration with failing to articulate its strategy. “It has been the worst of all worlds,” he said. “A vagueness on strategy, but a willingness to deploy force. They are totally muddying the waters, and now you have significant risk of escalation.”
“I know the president is fond of secret plans,” Goldenberg said. “But this situation requires clarity about our objectives and what we will or won't tolerate.”
Trump promised during his campaign to announce within his first month in office a new strategy for defeating the Islamic State. That strategy remains unrevealed, and for several months Trump appeared to be following President Barack Obama's lead in avoiding Assad, Iran and Russia and continuing a punishing assault on Islamic State strongholds elsewhere in Syria, as well as in Iraq.
In April, Trump broke that mold with a cruise missile attack on regime forces after their use of chemical weapons against civilians. Assad and his allies protested but did little else.
More recently, however, there have been direct clashes between the United States and the regime. Trump's campaign calls to join forces with Russia against the Islamic State have largely disappeared amid increased estrangement between Washington and Moscow and investigations of Trump associate's contacts with Russian officials.
Despite U.S. warnings, regime and militia forces have moved toward the Syrian town of Tanf, near the Iraq border, where U.S. advisers are training Syrian proxies to head northeast toward Deir al-Zour, the region's largest city, controlled by the regime and surrounded by the Islamic State. It is a prize that the regime also wants to claim.
At the end of May, Syrian and Iranian-backed forces pushed southward to the Iraq border, between Tanf and Bukamal, where the Euphrates crosses into Iraq. In Iraq, Iranian-backed militias have, in small but concerning numbers, left the anti-Islamic State fight and headed closer to the border, near where regime forces were approaching.
On at least three occasions in May and June, U.S. forces have bombed Iranian-supported militia forces approaching the Tanf garrison. Twice this month, they have shot down what they called “pro-regime” armed drones, including one on June 8th that fired on Syrian fighters and their American advisers.
On Sunday, two days before the most recent drone shoot-down near Tanf, a U.S. F/A-18 shot down a Syrian air force jet southwest of Raqqa.
In response, Russia said it would train its powerful anti-aircraft defense system in western Syria on farther areas where U.S. aircraft are operating and shut down the communications line that the two militaries have used to avoid each other in the crowded Syrian airspace.
“The only actions we have taken against pro-regime forces in Syria … have been in self-defense,” General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week.
Dunford also made clear that victory against the Islamic State in Raqqa, and in Mosul, where the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi forces are in the last stages of a months-long offensive, will not mark the end of the war.
“Raqqa is tactical. Mosul is tactical,” Dunford said. “We ought not to confuse success in Raqqa and Mosul as something that means it's the end of the fight. I think we should all be braced for a long fight.”
In a report on Wednesday, the Institute for the Study of War, referring to intelligence and expert sources, said that the Islamic State in Raqqa had already relocated “the majority of its leadership, media, chemical weapons, and external attack cells” south to the town of Mayadin in Deir al-Zour province.
Neither the U.S.-led coalition and its local allies nor what the institute called the “Russo-Iranian coalition” can “easily access this terrain — located deep along the Euphrates River Valley — with their current force posture,” it said.
At the White House, senior officials involved in Syria policy see what's happening through a lens focused as much on Iran as on the Islamic State. The Iranian goal, said one, “seems to be focused on making that link-up with Iran-friendly forces on the other side of the border, to control lines of communication and try to block us from doing what our commanders and planners have judged all along is necessary to complete the ISIS campaign.” ISIS is another name for the Islamic State.
“If it impacts your political outcome, if it further enables Iran to solidify its position as the dominant force in Syria for the long haul,” the official said, “that threatens other things,” including “the defeat-ISIS strategy” and “the ability to get to political reconciliation efforts.”
“For us,” the official said, “that's the biggest concern.”• Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed to this report.• Karen DeYoung is associate editor and senior national security correspondent for The Washington Post.• Greg Jaffe is a reporter on the national staff of The Washington Post, where he has been since March 2009. Previously, he covered the White House and the military for The Post.__________________________________________________________________________ Related stories:
• ISIS blows up 800-year-old mosque in Mosul, Iraqi military says
• Syria: France's Macron no sees no clear successor for Assad
• Syria troops position themselves at heart of war on IS
• In third shoot-down in a month, U.S. jet destroys another Iranian drone over Syria
• EDITORIAL: What happens after the Islamic State is defeated in Iraq and Syria?www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-on-collision-course-with-syria-and-iran-after-fall-of-de-facto-islamic-state-capital/2017/06/21/b03d9620-55cc-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html |
|
