Shortly after Russia disclosed on Sunday that a top Russian military commander, Lieutenant General Valery Asapov - who was serving as one of Russia’s "military advisers" in Syria - was fatally wounded by an exploding shell in a mortar attack by ISIS terrorists, on Monday the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the “two-faced policy” of the United States was to blame for the death of the Russian General in Syria.
“The death of the Russian commander is the price, the bloody price, for two-faced American policy in Syria,” Ryabkov told reporters, according to RIA.
Russia has complained about what it has suggested are "suspiciously friendly ties" between U.S.-backed militias, U.S. special forces, and Islamic State in the area, accusing Washington of trying to slow the advance of the Syrian army.
As a reminder, on Sunday the Russian Ministry of Defense published aerial images which they say show US Army special forces equipment located north of the Syrian town of Deir ez-Zor, where IS militants are deployed. The US troops do not face any “resistance from the ISIS militants,” while their positions have no screening patrol, which could indicate that they “feel absolutely safe” in the area, the ministry said. The US Central Command however denied the accusations in a written statement to RT.
“The allegations are false. For operational security, we do not comment on ongoing operations or the current positions of Coalition personnel and our partner forces,” the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve said.
Ryabkov also questioned Washington’s intention to fight Islamic State in Syria.
“The American side declares that it is interested in the elimination of IS ... but some of its actions show it is doing the opposite and that some political and geopolitical goals are more important for Washington,” Ryabkov said according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, in keeping with the growing escalation between Russia and the US over Deir Ezzor, earlier on Monday, American-backed Syrian militias again accused Russian warplanes of striking their positions in the oil-rich province, near a natural gas field they seized from Islamic State last week. Russia denied that.
Despite the growing escalations, the Russian and US militaries maintain “intensive” contacts at different levels, Ryabkov said.
The Trump administration has stopped disclosing material information about the size and nature of the U.S. commitment to military action in Iraq and Syria, including the number of U.S. troops deployed in either country, in a bid to "surprise" the Islamic State with the number of US troops in the region the LA Times reports.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon quietly dispatched 400 Marines to northern Syria to operate artillery in support of Syrian militias that are cooperating in the fight against Islamic State, according to U.S. officials. That was the first use of U.S. Marines in that country since its long civil war began. In Iraq, nearly 300 Army paratroopers were deployed recently to help the Iraqi military in their six-month assault on the city of Mosul, according to U.S. officials.
The decision appears to be making good on Trump’s promise as a candidate to insist on more of an “element of surprise” in battle tactics.
“In order to maintain tactical surprise, ensure operational security and force protection, the coalition will not routinely announce or confirm information about the capabilities, force numbers, locations, or movement of forces in or out of Iraq and Syria,” said Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman.
While neither of those deployments were officially announced prior to their implementation, Gen. Joseph Votel, the top US commander in the Middle East did acknowledge the additional troop presence in Syria to the House Armed Services committee on Wednesday.
“They have deployed,” Votel said, adding that there were likely more troops headed for deployment. “We have recognized that as we continue to pursue our military objectives in Syria, we are going to need more direct all-weather fire support capability for our Syrian Democratic Force partners,” Votel told the committee. “We have not taken our eye off what our principle mission is, which is to advise and assist and enable our partners... Help our partners fight, but not fight for them.”
A representative of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) confirmed that “routine” troop deployment announcements will stop under Donald Trump as US forces want the Islamic State terrorists to be the “first to know about any additional capabilities the Coalition or our partner forces may present them on the battlefield.”
Under the Obama administration, Pentagon policy was to announce conventional deployments after they occurred. That administration even took the unusual step of revealing in 2015 that 200 special operations forces — whose missions often are classified — had been sent to Syria. That’s now changed, according to Pentagon officials.
“The coalition commander’s intent is that ISIS be first to know about any additional capabilities the coalition or our partner forces may present them on the battlefield,” Pahon said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Ned Price, National Security Council spokesman under President Barack Obama, criticized the new approach of Trump"s administration not to share such crucial details with Americans. “The position of the Obama administration was that the American people had a right to know if servicemen and women were in harm’s way,” Price told the LA Times. “It’s truly shocking that the current administration furtively deploys troops without public debate or describing their larger strategy.”
Currently 5,262 US troops are authorized to be in Iraq, a US military official told the Military Times last Thursday. Another 503 are authorized to be in Syria by Washington. What makes the deployment complicated is that such an authorization has not been granted by the capital Damascus, which considers the US presence an illegal invasion. The US officials further noted that the real numbers may be way larger as those figures fail to reflect those servicemen who are sent to Iraq and Syria on so-called temporary “non-enduring” missions. There are roughly 1,000 US special operations forces, Marines and Army Rangers in Northern Syria today – and that number might soon grow even larger.
Commenting on a Fox News report that the Pentagon is sending two units – comprising 200 to 300 soldiers in total – from the 82nd Airborne Division"s 2nd Brigade Combat Team (2nd BCT) to Iraq, Pahon told the Military Times, that there was no plan to announce the temporary deployment because it will last less 120 days and will not count against the authorized number of American troops in the country.
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Meanwhile Operation Inherent Resolve has released its latest Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) Monthly Civilian Casualty Report, which admitted 9 additional civilian deaths caused by the US-led coalition – five in 2017 and four more from 2015. The Pentagon has reported receiving 41 new reports of possible civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria during the month of February 2017. The report said the coalition completed the assessment on 17 reports, while a total of 43 inquiries are still open and are being probed.
Out of 17 assessed reports, the coalition dismissed twelve as “non-credible” while five were assessed to be “credible.”
Despite numerous human rights organizations’ reports of the mounting civilian death toll in Mosul, Iraq, the US-led coalition claimed it received only 15 credible reports of incidents in which civilians were killed by the time US-coordinated Iraqi forces who freed Eastern Mosul in February.
“In Mosul, Iraq, since the start of operations to liberate the city on Oct. 17, 2016, to the liberation of the East side of Mosul on Feb. 18, 2017, the total number of reports of possible civilian casualties was 37. The total number of credible reports during this time period was 15,” the US-led coalition said, without specifying how many civilians were killed in these incidents.
The Pentagon said that in total from August 2014 to February 2017, the coalition conducted a total of 18,645 strikes that included 42,089 separate engagements accidentally killing 229 civilians. Meanwhile, rights groups and activists such as the UK-based monitoring group Airwars, believe the number could be more than 10 times higher.
The US military confirmed on Saturday that a coalition airstrike had hit an Islamic State-held area of Iraq"s Mosul where as many as 240 civilians may have been killed as result of the air raid.
What happened in the incident on March 17 in Mosul al-Jadida district is still unclear according to Reuters. Some residents say a coalition air strike hit an explosive-filled truck, detonating a blast that collapsed buildings packed with families. Mosul municipality chief, Abdul Sattar al-Habbo, who is supervising the rescue, said 240 bodies had been pulled from the rubble of collapsed buildings. Previous estimates from local officials had said around 130 people had died. While US officials say they are investigating, initial reports from residents and Iraqi officials in the past week said dozens of people had been killed after air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces.
The US said the strike was at the request of the Iraqi forces. The American confirmation followed a decision by Iraqi government forces to pause their drive to recapture west Mosul on Saturday because of the high rate of civilian casualties.
“An initial review of strike data from March 16-23 indicates that, at the request of the Iraqi Security Forces, the Coalition struck ISIS fighters and equipment, March 17, in West Mosul at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties,” US Central Command said in a statement issued on Saturday.
Videos of the deadly aftermath of the airstrike released on Friday show scores of dead bodies being pulled out of a completely destroyed building in western Mosul. There have also been reports by eyewitnesses who say over a hundred civilians were either killed or buried under rubble in the bombing raid.
At least 40 bodies had been recovered from collapsed buildings on Thursday, Reuters reported, citing Iraqi Civil Defense chief Brigadier Mohammed Al-Jawari. Many others were buried in the rubble, he added.
The United Nations on Saturday expressed concern over the high number of civilian casualties in Mosul. “We are stunned by this terrible loss of life,” Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement.
Saying that all allegations of civilian casualties are taken “seriously,” the Combined Joint Task Force said “a formal Civilian Casualty Credibility Assessment has been opened to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties.”
With fighting intensifying to recapture Mosul, around half a million civilians remain in Islamic State-held areas in the west of the city, complicating use of air strikes and heavy artillery to drive the hardline militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq. Iraqi forces are pushing into Mosul"s Old City, where fleeing residents say militants are hiding among the civilian population, sheltering in family homes and using the narrow alleyways and streets to their advantage.
According to Reuters, an Iraqi Federal Police spokesman said on Saturday that operations to drive Islamic State out of western Mosul were halted because of the “high death toll among civilians inside the Old City.” Later, the Iraqi command denied this in a statement cited by Iraqi Alsumaria TV.
A local resident told RT, whose crew is on the ground in Mosul, that “ISIS made us keep our door open, so they could get onto the roofs at any time. They even broke down the walls between houses so they could move around." Another witness added that "I don’t know why they were climbing onto our rooftops, whether it was to fight or to provoke airstrikes."
Up to 600,000 civilians are still believed to remain in Islamic State-controlled areas of Mosul, according to Reuters. Some 700 civilians had been killed by government and coalition airstrikes in western Mosul since the launch of the offensive in late February, the agency added, citing unconfirmed reports from the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights.
For most of its recent history, China has largely been a land power with no significant naval capabilities. They haven’t been able to exert much military influence beyond their coastline for hundreds of years. In fact, one of the reasons why Western powers had no trouble bullying China during the 19th and 20th centuries, was because the Imperial Navy under the Qing dynasty was incredibly weak. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that lately, China has been putting a lot of effort into building an effective overseas naval force.
Not only have they been busy constructing their first combat-ready aircraft carrier, the Chinese have also been developing new aircrafts to accompany it. Of course, a navy can’t really exert much military influence if it doesn’t have soldiers to deploy. That’s why Chinese officials have recently announced that they are preparing to rapidly expand the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army Marine Corps.
Chinese media is reporting the People’s Liberation Army’s ambitious new plans following the announcement of a 7 per cent increase to $200 billion in defence spending last week.
Among the details to emerge is a move to boost China’s marine corps — highly trained and well equipped troops intended for rapid deployment and offensive missions launched from the sea — from an existing 20,000 troops to more than 100,000.
Chinese officials have stated this is to protect arterial maritime trade routes and enforce its growing overseas interests.
“What growing overseas interests” you might ask?
Well, China has been in the process of building their first overseas military base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa. And that base is expected to be completed this summer.
Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of AfriCom, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he expected the Chinese base on the Horn of Africa to be operational later this summer.
Without getting specific, Waldhauser said he recently met with Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh “and expressed our concerns about some of the things that are important to us about what the Chinese should not do at that location.”
The Chinese base would be about four miles from the U.S. base at Camp Lemonnier, one of the Pentagon’s largest and most important foreign military installations, where about 3,000 U.S. military personnel and contractors are assigned to Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
Given that base’s close proximity to Camp Lemonnier, China’s intentions are obvious.
They want what the United States has, which is a vast overseas empire, and an expeditionary force that can reach any coastline in the world. They want to compete with our current role in the global theater. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough room in the world for two countries carrying out that role. We may very well be witnessing the first stages of a new conflict between the United States and China.
In the immediate aftermath of the failed Turkish "coup" of July 2016, the immediate concern to the US was not the fate of the Erdogan regime, but whether the US would maintain access to Incirlik Air Base, a strategic output for the US airforce, allowing it fast and easy access to most of the Middle East and part of Russia even in the immediate absence of an aircraft carrier. It explains why when Erdogan said he felt snubbed by the US, he cut off the power to the US troops stationed at the airbase, and kept them in the dark for a considerable period of time, perhaps to remind Washington that in Turkey he is the boss.
Fast forward to this week, when on Wednesday, Turkish officials again made a veiled threat to ground U.S. warplanes at Incirlik Air Base over the U.S. denial of air support for the Turkish military inside Syria. The officials questioned the value of having the U.S. fly missions out of Incirlik in southeastern Turkey against ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq while Turkish forces are struggling to take the ISIS-held Syrian town of El Bab.
"This is leading to serious disappointment in Turkish public opinion," Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik said, adding that "this is leading to questions over Incirlik," Turkey"s Anadolu news agency reported.
He then once again treatened the US, when he said that to avoid repercussions that could affect Incirlik operations, the Defense Minister called on the U.S. to "start to provide the aerial support and other support that the [Turkish military] needs" to take El Bab, which would also drive a wedge between Syrian Kurdish militias supported by the U.S. in actions against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian said Wednesday than any actions by Turkey to shut down or limit U.S. air operations out of Incirlik would be disastrous for the U.S. anti-ISIS campaign now focused in Syria on the drive by a mixed Syrian Kurdish and Arab force against Raqqa, the self-proclaimed ISIS capital. What he meant to say is that it would disastrous for the U.S., period, as it would deprive the US of one of its most critical military outputs in the MENA region.
12 F-15s from RAF Lakenheath, UK are deployed to Incirlik AB, Turkey, November, 2015
"It"s absolutely invaluable," Dorrian, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said of Incirlik. "Really, the entire world has been made safer by the operations that have been conducted there." Well, that or precisely the opposite - it all depends on one"s point of view.
Turkey briefly closed its airspace to U.S. operations out of Incirlik last July and cut off power to the base during the failed military coup against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when suspicions ran high among Turkish officials that the U.S. may have supported rebels within the military. As the coup attempt failed, a high-ranking Turkish officer walked across the Incirlik airfield and tried to turn himself into the U.S. military to seek asylum. His request was rejected, and he was arrested by Turkish authorities.
On Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, "The U.S. is a very important ally for us. We have cooperation in every field, but there is the reality of a confidence crisis in the relationship at the moment" over Incirlik and the El Bab offensive, which Turkey has named Operation Euphrates Shield. "Our people ask, "Why are they [the U.S. and coalition warplanes] using the ?ncirlik air base" " if they won"t back up Turkish forces against ISIS and the Kurdish militias considered terrorists by Turkey? "What purpose are you serving if you do not provide aerial support against [ISIS] in the most sensitive operation for us?"
U.S. officials have confirmed they are withholding airstrikes from the El Bab offensive while maintaining overall support for Turkey"s anti-ISIS efforts inside Syria, aimed at sealing off border areas. On Tuesday, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said that U.S. aircraft flew near El Bab on Monday but did not conduct any strikes. In a briefing from Baghdad to the Pentagon on Wednesday, Dorrian suggested that weather and poor intelligence on the disposition of friendly forces may have been a factors in the decision not to attack.
"The cardinal rule of air support is to do no harm," Dorrian said, adding that the aircrews may not have had "good fidelity" on enemy positions. The result was "a show of force that was conducted at the request of Turkish forces operating on the ground," he said.
Quoted by Military.com, Dorrian said that "there were ongoing discussions at higher levels "to increase the support and operations" by the U.S. military to back Turkish forces, but "I can"t get ahead of those discussions. I don"t have the details to offer you about what the way forward will be in El Bab. But I do know there has been some good discussion on that, and Turkey is aware of that discussion," he said.
The loss of Incirlik air base would be a tremendous hit to US influence in the region.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction in 1951 of what was to become Incirlik Air Base, and U.S. and Turkish air forces signed an agreement in 1954 for joint use of the base. Incirlik long served as a deterrent to the then-Soviet Union and as a staging base for U.S. operations in the Mideast.
Despite recurring reports that US nuclear weapons are store in the base, the U.S. Air Force will neither confirm nor deny. About 5,000 U.S. service members, mostly Air Force, are based at Incirlik; they are currently confined to the base because of unrest in the region. The U.S. last year withdrew military families from Turkey, and the State Department has also sent home non-essential personnel.
The tensions over El Bab and Incirlik have only added to the downward spiral of relations between the U.S. and NATO ally Turkey, marked by Erdogan"s new alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring about a ceasefire and peace talks to end Syria"s nearly six-year-old civil war. As reported last week, the U.S. was not invited to a Moscow meeting last month of the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran that led to Putin"s announcement last week of the ceasefire and possible peace talks later this month in Astana, Kazakhstan, with rebel groups.
Turkey has also been angered by what it sees as U.S. foot-dragging on its extradition request for exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, now living in Pennsylvania. Erdogan has blamed Gulen for fomenting the July coup attempt. In addition, Erdogan has bridled at U.S. support for the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG, or People"s Protection Units. The YPG has proven to be the most effective fighting force against ISIS in Syria, but Erdogan considers it an arm of the Kurdish PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, which has been branded a terrorist group by the U.S. and Turkey.
A senior U.S. military official, speaking on background last month, told Military.com that the Turks "hate that we support" the YPG.
Erdogan and other Turkish officials have charged that the U.S. is supplying weapons to the YPG. The U.S., while acknowledging support for the YPG, has denied giving them recent supplies of weapons.
