Russia launched the missiles Wednesday morning from four ships in the Caspian Sea nearly 1,500 kilometers (around 930 miles) from their 11 targets, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting.
Russian (4) warships fire cruise missiles into Syria
AFP: Russian warships joined in strikes in Syria with a volley of cruise missile attacks Wednesday as Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged his air force would back a ground offensive by government forces.
Ships from the Caspian Sea fleet launched 26 cruise missile strikes that hit 11 targets over 1,500 kilometres away in Syria, Moscow said.
Putin said Russian efforts “will be synchronised with the actions of the Syrian army on the ground and the actions of our air force will effectively support the offensive operation of the Syrian army”, at a televised meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The Russian leader, however, also stressed the need for cooperation with a US-led coalition fighting Islamic State jihadists, saying that without cooperation from the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the intervention was unlikely to work.
Russian forces have struck 112 targets in war-torn Syria since last week launching a bombing campaign that Moscow says is targeting the IS group, Shoigu told Putin in the televised briefing.
“Strikes have hit 112 targets from September 30 until today,” Shoigu said. “The intensity of the strikes is increasing.”
In a sign that Russia was ramping up its involvement, Shoigu said that four Russian warships had hit sites in Syria on Wednesday with cruise missiles.
“In addition to the air force, four warships of the Caspian flotilla have been involved,” Shoigu said, adding that the warships had carried out 26 cruise missile strikes against 11 targets.
A military spokesman told Russian news wires that the strikes from the warships had hit positions of IS and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.
Rockets in the darkness
A video released by the Russian defence ministry showed rockets being launched from a ship in darkness and traced their route to Syria over Iran and Iraq.
Russia began air strikes in Syria a week ago following a request by long-standing ally President Bashar al-Assad.
Moscow insists it is hitting IS and other “terrorist” targets, but the US and its allies fear that Moscow is aiming to bolster Assad’s regime.
Putin also said that French leader Francois Hollande had suggested a possible plan to get Assad’s forces to combine efforts with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, the main moderate opposition group fighting the Damascus regime.
A Hollande aide later denied he had said any such thing. “The president spoke of the necessary presence of the Syrian opposition around a future negotiating table. The rest is not a French idea,” he told reporters in Strasbourg.
“During my last visit to Paris, French President Hollande expressed an interesting idea according to which, in his opinion, it might be possible to at least try to unite the efforts of the government troops of president Assad’s army and the so-called Free Syrian Army,” Putin said.
A member of Hollande’s entourage denied that he had suggested an alliance between the groups.
Putin met with Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine in Paris last Friday.
Meanwhile:
EXCLUSIVE: Russian jets ‘intercept’ US predator drones over Syria, officials say
FNC: Russian fighter jets shadowed U.S. predator drones on at least three separate occasions high above Syria since the start of Russia’s air campaign last week, according to two U.S. officials briefed on this latest intelligence from the region.
“The first time it happened, we thought the Russians got lucky. Then it happened two more times,” said one official.
Both officials said that the incidents took place over ISIS-controlled Syria, including its de facto headquarters in Raqqa, as well as along the Turkish-Syrian border near Korbani. Another occurred in the northwest, near the highly contested city of Aleppo.
The U.S. military’s MQ-1 Predator drone is not a stealth aircraft.
“It is easy to see a predator on radar,” said one official.
The Russians have not attempted to shoot down any of the U.S. drones, but instead have flown “intercept tracks,” a doctrinal term meaning the Russians flew close enough to make their presence felt, according to one official.
One other official said, “the Russians flew very close, but did not impede the drone flight.”
“The first time it happened, we thought the Russians got lucky. Then it happened two more times.”
– U.S. official briefed on intelligence
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook, traveling with the defense secretary in Europe leading up to a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels Thursday, said the Pentagon is open to more military-to-military talks with the Russians. No immediate date has been established to conduct the next round of talks, according to one defense official.
This development comes as Russia has moved some of its Mi-24 gunships and transport helicopters from an air base along the Mediterranean to another air base outside Homs, roughly 100 miles away. Russian ground forces, hundreds of Russian marines — as well as four BM-30 Smerch rocket launchers capable of firing cluster munitions, mines as well as high explosive warheads — are now in position to strike, but there is no evidence they have done so according to multiple defense officials. Infantry fighting vehicles and more a conventional artillery battery has also been seen by the intelligence community.
All these movements demonstrate the Russians are forming a “protective belt” around Latakia, the stronghold of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and are carrying out airstrikes against anti-Assad rebel forces, some backed by the CIA, to protect both regime and Russian interests, including a Russian naval base in Tartus established in the 70s.
The Pentagon maintains the vast majority of strikes from its forward operating base at Bassel al-Assad airport in Latakia including some 30 fighter/bomber jets have been against Syrian opposition forces and not ISIS, and one official pushed back on Russian defense ministry claims on the number of strikes the Russians have launched.
“The Russians carried out only one half or at best a quarter of the strikes they claim to have conducted,” said a senior military official.
Over the past weekend, Turkey claims that Russia on two separate occasions violated its airspace. Despite Turkish pressure on NATO and top US government officials calling the action “unprofessional” and a “provocation” two senior US military officials downplayed the incident.
“The Russians flew along the border and we still don’t know for sure what happened.”
At least one of the alleged incidences occurred in Turkey’s Hatay Province.
In 1939, land belonging to Syria and the Assad family in the northwest, along the Mediterranean bordering Latakia where the Russia has established an air base, was annexed by Turkey. Syria has never recognized the action and the two countries have been bitter enemies ever since.
