Russia 'reducing air strikes against Syrian rebels' as intervention fails
The air strikes appear to have failed to give an advantage to pro-Assad military forces despite daily launches
By Louisa Loveluck
9:00AM BST 16 Oct 2015
Russia is reducing its air strikes against Syrian insurgents, as the intervention fails to hand a swift advantage to pro-government forces.
Moscow’s daily strike rate peaked on Tuesday with warplanes flying 88 sorties against 86 targets. But in a statement on Wednesday, the Russian defence ministry said it would be reducing the frequency of strikes in order to support a stuttering regime offensive.
"The intensity of our military aviation operations decreased slightly in the last 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement. "As a result of active offensive operations by the Syrian armed forces, the front line/front-line with the terrorists is changing."
A Sukhoi Su-24M military aircraft landing on the tarmac at the Hmeymim air base near Latakia, Syria Photo: REUTERS/Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
Russian warplanes have at times launched more air strikes per day than than a US-led coalition targeting jihadist groups in Syria has managed in the space of a month.
The statement said air force jets had hit targets in the provinces of Damascus, Idlib, Hama and Aleppo and Deir Ez-Zor.
Those claims could not immediately be verified – although Moscow has repeatedly claimed to be hitting targets linked to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), munitions have mostly struck rebel groups fighting around the western heartland of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.
On Thursday morning, Russian warplanes accompanied pro-regime troops in an attack on rebel-held towns north of Homs, a long-held enclave of opposition to Mr Assad.
Video footage from Al Ghantu showed several bodies being dug from a shattered air aid shelter. Reports suggested that 60 people, including 30 women and children were killed in Homs.
Smoke rising after air strikes carried out by the Russian air force on an Islamic State base in Idlib province, SyriaSmoke rising after air strikes carried out by the Russian air force on an Islamic State base in Idlib province, Syria Photo: REUTERS/Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
Recapturing territory north of Homs would help the regime reassert control over the main population centres of western Syria, as well as securing territory linking Damascus to the coastal heartland of his minority Alawite sect.
Under cover of Russian air power, government and Hizbollah troops have launched ground attacks on three separate rebel fronts in recent days.
Experts warned on Thursday that these were unlikely to bear fruit for several weeks, and that gains will not necessarily be sustainable.
So far, progress has been limited – only six villages and towns have fallen, and significant military hardware has been lost along the way.
A pilot of Russia's Sukhoi Su-30 fighter aircraft Photo: TASS / Barcroft Media
In the central province of Hama last week, fighters from the Free Syrian Army claimed to have destroyed as many as twenty regime tanks and armoured vehicles with US-supplied weapons.
Iran has also suffered several high profile casualties, among them Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani, one of the most senior figures in Tehran’s war effort.
"Operations against the Syrian opposition will likely prove harder and slower than anticipated by Russia or Iran," warned the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War in a research note published on Thursday.
Russia's Sukhoi Su-30 fighter aircraft bombing ISIS installations in Syria Photo: TASS / Barcroft Media
It warned the two nations that they may be forced to commit considerably more resources to a conflict.
"The expanded interventions of both Russia and Iran will likely incentivise the Syrian regime to prioritise a military solution ... protracting the conflict and leading to further bloodshed," it said.
Syria's war has claimed more than a quarter of a million lives to date and more than half the population has been displaced.
