Russia launched airstrikes near Homs, Syria, Wednesday, hours after President Vladimir Putin received the green light from the upper house of the Russian parliament to begin the operation.
Russia “risks implicating itself in war crimes,” said Khaled Khoja, president of the Syrian National Council Wednesday. “Russia is not fighting [the Islamic State.] It is using its military force to support the Assad regime’s war against civilians.”
Putin received the go-ahead on the airstrikes Wednesday, Russian state media reported.
“The Federation Council unanimously supported the president’s request — 162 votes in favor of granting permission,” Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergey Ivanov said, according to state media.
Syrian President Bashar Assad had requested military assistance in the fight against the Islamic State, Ivanov said.
A Russian general walked across the street to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and delivered the message that Russian aircraft would begin military flights, a U.S. official said. The general then asked for all U.S. planes to clear out of Syrian airspace.
The U.S. did not comply with the request and is continuing to fly airstrikes on Wednesday against the Islamic State west of Aleppo, the official said.
Asked about the safety of U.S. pilots continuing to fly in Syria, the official said deconfliction is not an issue right now since American planes are striking in Islamic State-controlled areas and Russian strikes are hitting areas controlled by Assad. Going forward, however, the official said the U.S. recognizes the need to deconflict with the Russians.
The U.S. does not yet have any information on how many strikes Russia has conducted or what the specific targets are, other than that it’s “fair to say the target is not ISIL” since Homs does not contain Islamic State fighters, the official said.
Fox News reported that the Russians ordered “U.S. planes out of Syria, adding that Russian fighter jets were now flying over Syrian territory,” but that the U.S. military would not comply with that demand.
Russia has been building up its military capacity inside Syria for weeks, and Russian planes and drones have run familiarization flights in the region, a U.S. official told CNN, adding that Russia is ready to begin airstrikes at any time.
Over 600 Russian troops are inside Syria and four Russian Su-34 Fullback fighter jets arrived at Latakia air base inside Syria, CNN reported. In recent weeks, Russia has sent weapons, portable housing units, military advisers, artillery and about a half dozen tanks to the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of Assad. A Pentagon spokesman described the buildup last week as an apparent Russian “forward operating base.”
The sort of materiel Russia has moved into the region caused U.S. officials to express concern about its true intentions, as the airstrikes do not appear to be targeting Islamic State regions of Syria, a U.S. official told Reuters. Instead the Russian airstrikes appear aimed at moderate and other Islamist rebel groups.
“I have not seen [Islamic State] flying any airplanes that require SA-15s or SA-22s (Russian missiles). I have not seen [Islamic State] flying any airplanes that require sophisticated air-to-air capabilities,” Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander, said Monday.
“I’m looking at the capabilities and the capacities that are being created and I determine from that what might be their intent. These very sophisticated air defense capabilities are not about [Islamic State]. They’re about something else,” a U.S. official told CNN.
Evelyn Farkas, the Pentagon’s top official on Russia, Ukraine and Syria resigned yesterday.
This buildup comes after President Obama met with Putin for 90 minutes after the two leaders criticized each other from the United Nations podium Monday.
The two nations are still in talks on how to deconflict airstrikes in the region, as both the U.S. and Russia are now sharing airspace above Syria.
The powerful Russian Orthodox Church praised Putin’s actions in Syria as a “holy war” Wednesday, saying that the move conformed with “international law.”
“The fight with terrorism is a holy war and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called the Russian strikes in Syria “a troubling new development to a war effort already plagued with problems.”
“Already, the growing Russian presence has thrown a life line to embattled dictator Bashar al-Assad,” the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in a statement. “The increased longevity of the regime — made possible by this Russian intervention — will only prolong the civil war, which will continue as long as a regime that barrel bombs its own people remains in power.”
