Vol. 80/No. 29 August 8, 2016
(front page)
US gov’t tries for military deal on Syria with Moscow
According to the Washington Post, the pact the White House is seeking would establish a joint command center staffed by U.S. and Russian military and intelligence officers in Amman, Jordan, to coordinate joint airstrikes in Syria against Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. Al-Nusra is militarily the strongest of the opposition forces fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Smaller opposition groups backed by Washington often collaborate with and depend on al-Nusra, and would be greatly weakened as a result.
In return, Washington wants Moscow to pressure the Assad government to ease off bombing areas held by opposition groups aligned with Washington, and to step up attacks against Islamic State forces. After talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Laos July 26, Kerry told reporters that he hopes by early August to announce a deal that would “make a difference … to the course of the war.”
Responding to press reports that many in the U.S. military and spy agencies are uneasy about sharing intelligence with Moscow, Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said July 25, “We’re not entering into a transaction that’s founded on trust.” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter echoed the point at the same press briefing, stressing an agreement with Moscow would be based on “mutual interest to the extent … we’re able to identify that.”
Meanwhile, Assad’s forces, backed by Russian airstrikes and Iranian militias, are continuing a major offensive in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. Some 300,000 people in the eastern half of the city, which is controlled by opposition forces, have been cut off from food and other supplies. Schools, hospitals and markets are being eradicated by Syrian and Russian planes dropping barrel bombs and incendiary cluster munitions.
The civil war in Syria, which began in 2011 after the government crushed mobilizations of hundreds of thousands of Syrians demanding political rights and an end to Assad’s regime, has left half a million dead and forced millions from their homes.
Asked in a July 13 interview with NBC News to respond to charges that he had blood on his hands, Assad replied, “If you have a doctor who cut the hand because of a gangrene to save the patient, you do not say he is a brutal doctor. He’s doing his job.”
The U.S. and Russian governments brokered a cease-fire in February, and Washington put aside its demand that Assad must go. But the cease-fire rapidly fell apart and proposed talks on a political settlement stalled. Talks between the Assad government and many of the opposition groups that have been involved in the civil war are now projected to restart in Geneva in late August.
Offensives against Islamic State
As it seeks Moscow’s help to try to stabilize the situation in Syria, the Obama administration is looking to further push back Islamic State. Defense and foreign ministers from more than 40 countries met in Washington July 20-21 to discuss projected military offensives by U.S.-allied ground forces later this year to retake Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the two main cities still held by the reactionary group.As they met, fierce combat was underway in Manbij in northwest Syria, where Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by U.S. airstrikes, were battling to retake the town from Islamic State. Manbij has been a strategic link in the IS supply line from Turkey to Raqqa, its de facto capital. Islamic State troops have prevented many of the town’s 80,000 residents from escaping, using them as human shields.
Taking Manbij would bring the Kurds — an oppressed people in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran — closer to controlling a continuous stretch of territory in northern Syria, along the Turkish border. Because of this, the Turkish government until May had refused to let U.S. planes fly from its Incirlik air base to back Kurdish forces in Syria, and had threatened to bomb any advance on Manbij by the SDF.
Some 300 U.S. special operations forces on the ground in Syria will “help conduct the offensive,” reported the Wall Street Journal. According to Syrian human rights groups, U.S. airstrikes on villages near Manbij killed more than 50 civilians July 19.
The situation facing refugees is dire. Since May 25, nearly 40,000 civilians fleeing the fighting in northern Syria have arrived in the Kurdish town of Afrin after the Turkish government closed its border. Turkey refuses to allow aid across the border.
In the west, Jordan closed its border following a suicide bombing June 21, blocking food and medicine from reaching 70,000 refugees in desert camps on the Syrian side and barring access to medical treatment in Jordan for injured fighters and civilians. Russian airstrikes targeting Assad opponents hit one of these refugee camps July 12.
Press estimates put the number of Iranian troops and militia members killed while fighting for the Assad regime at 700 over the past several years. Previously quiet about its military activities in Iraq and Syria, Iranian authorities now publish the names and photos of those killed and honor them as “defenders of the shrines” of the Shiite saints, part of an effort to promote public patriotism behind the military interventions.
One goal of the July 20-21 meeting in Washington was to garner greater support from U.S. allies in preparation for an assault on Mosul by Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Washington is sending 560 more troops to Iraq to help prepare the assault.
Paris said it would deploy an aircraft carrier, London pledged an additional 50 military trainers, the Canadian government offered 40 to 50 medical personnel and Australian officials announced they would boost training of Iraqi police.
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