US and allies call on Russia to halt air strikes on Syria

WASHINGTON // The United States and six allies on Friday called on Russia to cease what they said were attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians, and expressed “deep concern” over Moscow’s military build-up in Syria.

In a joint statement, the United States, France, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Britain criticised Russian air strikes that they said did not target the militant ISIL group.

“These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalisation,” they said.

In Paris meanwhile, the presidents of Russia and France, which both began bombing Syria this week, held talks on Friday about their military operations as they tried to overcome differences on whether Syrian president Bashar Al Assad should stay in power.

The Russian, French and German leaders met in Paris after a week of frenzied international activity around Syria.

Russian fighter jets have kept up a bombing campaign since Wednesday. While Russia said it was targeting extremists, western officials suspect it of using the campaign as a pretext to go after anti-Assad rebels.

The attacks this week ensured Russia’s role as a major player in Syria’s fate. In the space of a few days, air strikes and Vladimir Putin’s manoeuvring at the UN first raised hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough – then brought fears of a new proxy war with the West.

“Putin’s economy may be in tatters, and the domestic outlook isn’t great, but his foreign policy game has been very strong lately. Why? Because he has astutely recognised the West’s priorities and linked them to his own,” said Alexander Kliment, Russia director for Eurasia Group.

A French diplomat said Mr Putin and French president Francois Hollande tried to bridge differences over a political transition in Syria, but Mr Al Assad’s future was a big sticking point: he is Russia’s main ally in the Middle East, while France is firmly opposed to his rule.

Speaking at the United Nations, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir expressed deep concern that the international community had been unable to save Syrians from the war that has devastated their country. He said that the Syrian crisis was the worst humanitarian disaster of the current era. Yet, the international community continued to be unable to save the Syrian people from the “killing machine that was being operated by Bashar Al Assad”, he said. “Those whose hands are stained with the blood of the Syrian people” had no place in a “new Syria”.

Also speaking at the UN, Syrian foreign minister Walid Al Moallem hinted that any change in leadership was far in the futureand that Syrian forces – and not just air strikes – were the only hope of defeating ISIL.

Russia’s air strikes have prompted discussions in the Pentagon about whether the US should use military force to protect US-trained and equipped Syrian rebels if they came under fire from the Russians.

The Pentagon on Thursday had its first conversation with Russian officials in an effort to avoid any unintended US-Russian confrontations.

The first Russian air strikes on an ISIL-held area hit a town near its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria on Thursday, according to images from the Russian defence ministry and Syrian activists.

Activists say ISIL suspended Friday prayers in several mosques in Raqqa, fearing new Russian air strikes.

The Russian defence ministry statement on Friday said the latest wave of air strikes targeted only ISIL and destroyed a command post near Daret Azzeh in the Aleppo region and hit a field camp near Maaret Al Numan in the Idlib region, wiping out bunkers and weapons stores.

The ministry released cockpit video of the bombing of the Kassert-Faradz command post and of two attacks in Maaret Al Numan.

Russian jets appeared to be primarily bombing central and northwestern Syria, strategic regions that are the gateway to Mr Al Assad’s strongholds in the capital of Damascus and the coast.

However, given rapidly shifting battlefield terrain in Syria’s chaotic civil war, it can be difficult to distinguish which groups hold what territory.

Leaders around the world are concerned about extremists who have seized territory and power in the chaos of Syria’s civil war — and now threaten attacks abroad. But Russia and the West don’t appear to be bombing Syria for all the same reasons.

Allies in the US-led coalition have called on Russia to cease attacks on the Syrian opposition and to focus on fighting ISIL militants.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday rejected suggestions that the air strikes were meant to shore up Mr Al Assad, Moscow’s main ally in the Middle East.

Mr Lavrov insisted Russia was targeting the same militant groups as the US-led coalition, which is conducting its own air strikes in Syria: ISIL, the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and other groups.

Mr Putin came to Friday’s meetings with the upper hand militarily. It’s a tactic he’s used in the past: Before major peace talks on Ukraine’s conflict in 2014 and earlier this year, Russia sent troops to bolster struggling separatists, weakening the Ukrainian government’s negotiating power.

Germany has stayed out of the military action in Syria and pushed for a political solution.

Ahead of the Paris talks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed the importance of tackling the reasons hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing to Europe this year, and “that goes for Syria in particular.”

“We have all known for years that there can only be a solution there with Russia, and not against Russia,” Ms Merkel said Thursday.

* Associated Press, Reuters, Wam