Russia strikes by air; Syria troops push on

Moscow can’t save Assad, EU says

Syrian soldiers waving fl ags celebrate Sunday the capture of Achan in Hama province. Russian jets intensified their airstrikes Monday as Syrian government and allied troops pushed insurgents from villages and expanded their control of the area, activists and a military statement said.
Syrian soldiers waving fl ags celebrate Sunday the capture of Achan in Hama province. Russian jets intensified their airstrikes Monday as Syrian government and allied troops pushed insurgents from villages and expanded their control of the area, activists and a military statement said.

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Russian jets intensified their airstrikes Monday in central Syria as government forces battled insurgents in a strategic area near a rebel-held province and a government stronghold.

The government push is the latest in a bid to regain the Sahl al-Ghab plain, which is adjacent to Latakia province, a stronghold of President Bashar Assad and the Alawite religious minority group to which he belongs.

European Union nations on Monday criticized Russia's military intervention in Syria, maintaining that Moscow's efforts wouldn't keep Assad in power. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also criticized Russia, accusing it of prolonging the war in Syria. But in Iraq, Russia is drawing high praise among the country's Shiite majority.

Also on Monday, the United States began airdropping pallets of weapons and ammunition to the Syrian Kurdish militia and allied Arab forces in northern Syria.

After numerous Russian airstrikes, the fighting was focused on the village of Kfar Nabudeh, which officials said had been seized by government troops. Activists said Syrian rebels repelled the attack.

Capturing Kfar Nabudeh, in Hama province, would cut off a major highway, giving the pro-government forces access to the northwestern province of Idlib. A rebel coalition that includes the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front drove Assad's forces out of Idlib in September, in a major setback for the government. Their hold on the province threatened Latakia.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had struck 53 suspected Islamic State targets in 24 hours, destroying command centers, ammunition and fuel depots, and training camps that it said were used by foreign militants. The ministry said the Islamic State positions were in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, as well as in Latakia and Idlib. The Islamic State has a limited presence in Hama, away from where the fighting has been concentrated.

Russia insists it is mainly targeting the Islamic State and other "terrorists," but the multipronged ground-and-air offensive is being waged in areas controlled by mainstream rebels as well as the Nusra Front. The government ground offensive began Wednesday, a week after Russia began its airstrikes.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 30 airstrikes were carried out in Kfar Nabudeh and that government troops and Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters entered the village from the south. Another activist-run monitoring group, the Shaam News Network, said the insurgents ambushed government forces inside the village, which is reportedly riddled with tunnels.

The Syrian military said in a statement that it took control of the village and others nearby. Activist Hadi Abdullah, who travels with insurgents to report from the front lines, said the fighters had regained control of the village. It was not possible to reconcile the two accounts.

The Observatory reported that the fighting and air raids on Kfar Nabudeh left nine militants and five troops and pro-government gunmen dead.

Later Monday, Syrian state media and the Observatory said government forces captured the village of Mansoura on the northern edge of Hama province.

During the past six days of ground operations, government troops have seized at least two villages in eastern Hama province, Atshan and Tal Sukayk, and a third in the area of the Sahl al-Ghab plain, which is near the city of Hama in Hama province. Activists say rebels seized a village south of Idlib.

The Russian Defense Ministry statement said its jets have hit mortar positions around Tal Sukayk in the past 24 hours, as well as a training camp for foreign militants in Mastouma, in Idlib. The ministry said it used Su-34, Su-24M and Su-25SM planes to strike the targets.

The Pentagon confirmed that C-17 transport aircraft had dropped 45 tons of arms in 100 pallets to groups inside northern Syria. It said the initial drop late Sunday night was to benefit "Arab groups," a nod to Turkish concerns about U.S. support for Kurdish militias.

The Pentagon last week announced that it had ended its $500 million program to train and equip vetted Syrians to fight the Islamic State, and said the remaining money would be used to supply weapons to armed groups already in Syria that had had success against Islamic State.

Polat Can, the spokesman for the Kurdish political party whose armed wing has pushed the Islamic State from as much as 6,800 square miles of northern Syria, said the weapons included assault rifles, mortars and ammunition -- but no TOW anti-tank missiles nor anti-aircraft weapons. He said the Kurdish forces would distribute weapons to Arab units affiliated with the Kurdish militia.

The militia is the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which Turkey is fighting in southern Turkey and in Iraq.

EU worried

European Union nations on Monday criticized Russia's military intervention in Syria, with the bloc's top diplomat calling it a worrying "game changer." But EU countries maintained that Moscow's efforts wouldn't keep President Assad in power.

EU foreign ministers warned Moscow to center its military actions in Syria on the Islamic State group and not go after the moderate opposition at the same time.

"It has to be coordinated" among the U.S., the EU and Russia, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said of the attacks in Syria. "Otherwise it risks being extremely dangerous, not only from a political point of view, but mainly from a military point of view."

Russian airstrikes have backed moves by Syrian troops against insurgents in the center of the country, but President Vladimir Putin has said Russian efforts would help reach a political settlement.

Countering this, the EU ministers said in a statement that "this military escalation risks prolonging the conflict, undermining a political process, aggravating the humanitarian situation and increasing radicalization."

France's Europe Minister Harlem Desir said that Assad couldn't be part of a solution to the conflict, and the conclusions of the EU ministerial meeting said that "there cannot be a lasting peace in Syria under the present leadership."

Others saw Assad's position as something to be reckoned with, especially with Russian backing.

"It's not about who we like and who we don't like," Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak said. "It's about who is relevant and who is not. And as of today, he definitely is relevant," he said of Assad.

And German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier acknowledged that "the position and importance of individual actors has changed. With Russia's involvement, much has changed."

"There is no question that the efforts to arrive at a political solution have become more difficult and more complex," he said.

Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, on Monday accused Russia of prolonging the war in Syria by supporting Assad and called on Moscow to join the fight against Islamic State militants.

Speaking at NATO's parliamentary assembly in the southwestern Norwegian port of Stavanger, Stoltenberg said Russia's violation of Turkish and NATO airspace is unacceptable and that the alliance is worried about Russia's "substantial military buildup, its airstrikes and its cruise missile attacks" in the Middle East.

He called on Moscow to "play a constructive role in the fight against ISIL," using an acronym for the Islamic State and noting that many countries in the region and NATO allies are participating in the U.S.-led mission against the militants. He added that "supporting the Assad regime is not constructive ... [and] is only prolonging the war."

In Iraq, by contrast, one of the most popular Facebook posts in the country's Shiite heartland is a Photoshopped image of Putin dressed in the robe of a southern tribal sheikh.

With the struggle against the Islamic State largely stalemated, it is the naked display of Russian military power in neighboring Syria, and the leadership of "Sheikh Putin," that is being applauded by residents of Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad. "What the people in the street care about is how to get Daesh out of Iraq," Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, a member of Iraq's parliament, said, using an Arabic name for the Islamic State. "Now they feel Russia is more serious than the United States."

Further fueling Shiites' concerns is the perception that the U.S.-backed campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq is moving too slowly and that the United States is no longer interested in being the dominant military power in the Middle East.

At a seminar of journalists and civic leaders last week, Faris Hammam, the leader of the writers union in Najaf, asked how many attendees were glad that the Russian military was carrying out airstrikes in Syria. Most shot up their hands.

"The Russian intervention is welcomed, not because they like intervention but because of the American failure," Hammam said.

Iraq's prime minister announced on Monday the launch of the second phase of a large-scale military operation to drive Islamic State militants out of the central Salahuddin province.

A statement from Haider al-Abadi's office said the operation will aim "to liberate the whole of Salahuddin province, including the Beiji refinery," the country's largest.

Iraqi troops backed by U.S. airstrikes and Shiite and Sunni militias recaptured Salahuddin's provincial capital, Tikrit, in April, but their efforts have since stalled. Iraqi and U.S. officials have said the extreme summer heat caused setbacks.

Information for this article was contributed by Albert Aji, Sarah el Deeb, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Sylvie Corbet, Raf Casert and staff members of The Associated Press; by Roy Gutman, James Rosen, John Zarocostas and Zakaria Zakaria of Tribune News Service; and by Michael R. Gordon, Omar Al-Jawoshy and Andrew E. Kramer of The New York Times.

A Section on 10/13/2015

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