WORLD leaders have condemned Russia for carrying out a third day of air strikes in Syria and warned against escalating the conflict that has already claimed up to 250,000 civilian casualties.
Russia said it hit Islamic State’s ‘capital’, bombing an ‘IS training camp’ in its latest strike overnight. On Friday, it targeted rebel groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Leaders around the world are concerned about Islamic extremists who have seized territory and power in the chaos of Syria’s civil war — and now threaten attacks abroad.
Russian jets in third day of bombing in Syria1:19
Russia's defence ministry says it has hit a bomb-making facility and nine Islamic State targets in Syria. Rough cut (no reporter narration).
But Russia and the West don’t appear to be bombing Syria for all the same reasons.
Allies in the U.S.-led coalition have called on Russia to cease attacks on the Syrian opposition and risking escalating the four-year civil war that has already killed up to 250,000 people.
In a statement, the coalition urged Russia to focus on fighting Islamic State militants.
“These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalisation,’ seven countries including the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia said in a statement.
“We call on the Russian Federation to immediately cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians,’ it added.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop confirmed to reporters in Melbourne on Saturday that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had discussed Russian air strikes over Syria with US President Barack Obama.
The pair spoke about the fight against the Islamic State group during a phone call on Friday, with President Obama thanking the Prime Minister for Australia’s help as part of the coalition, the White House said.
They also discussed the involvement of Russia in the country, according to Ms Bishop.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday rejected suggestions the air strikes were meant to shore up Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow’s main ally in the Middle East.
The presidents of Russia and France, which both started bombing Syria this week, held talks Friday about their military operations as they tried to overcome differences on whether Assad should stay in power.
The Russian, French and German leaders met in Paris after a week of frenzied international activity around Syria that finally broke into Friday’s meeting, which was supposed to have been only about the Ukraine.
Russian fighter jets have kept up a sustained bombing campaign since Wednesday, including 10 new air strikes overnight.
While Russia says it’s targeting extremists, Western officials suspect Russia of using the air campaign as a pretext to go after anti-Assad rebels.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has faced mounting global criticism over his military campaign.
Putin entered Friday’s meeting after an intervention that ensured Russia’s role as a major player in Syria’s fate.
In the space of a few days, Russian air strikes and Putin’s diplomatic manoeuvring at the UN first raised hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough — then brought fears of a new proxy war with the West.
“Putin’s economy may be in tatters, and the domestic outlook isn’t great, but his foreign policy game has been very strong lately. Why? Because he has astutely recognised the West’s priorities and linked them to his own,” Alexander Kliment, Russia director for Eurasia Group said.
A senior French diplomat said Putin and French President Francois Hollande tried to bridge the differences over an eventual political transition in Syria, and also talked about the air strikes by Russia and the US-led coalition, and protecting civilians. The official was not authorised to be publicly named and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Assad’s future is a major sticking point: He’s Russia’s main ally in the Middle East, while France is firmly opposed to his rule.
At the United Nations, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said the Assad administration would participate in UN-led working groups toward a third round of Geneva talks on the fate of the country. He hinted that any change in leadership was far in the future.
“How can we ask the Syrian people to head to the ballot box while they are not safe in the streets?” he asked.
He added that Syrian forces — and not just air strikes — were the only hope of defeating Islamic State extremists.
Russia’s air strikes prompted discussions in the Pentagon about whether the US should use military force to protect US — trained and equipped Syrian rebels if they come under fire by the Russians.
The first Russian air strikes on an Islamic State-held area hit a town near its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria on Thursday, according to images from the Russian Defense Ministry and Syrian activists.
Activists say IS suspended Friday prayers in several mosques in Raqqa, fearing new Russian air strikes.
The Russian Defense Ministry statement Friday said the strikes targeted only IS and destroyed a command post near Daret Azzeh in the Aleppo region and hit a field camp near Maaret al-Numan in the Idlib region, wiping out bunkers and weapons stores.
Russian jets appeared to be primarily bombing central and north-western Syria, strategic regions that are the gateway to Assad’s strongholds in the capital of Damascus and the coast.
However, given rapidly shifting battlefield terrain in Syria’s chaotic civil war, it can be difficult to distinguish which groups hold what territory.
Lavrov insisted Russia was targeting the same militant groups as the US-led coalition, which is conducting its own air strikes in Syria: the Islamic State group, the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and other groups.
Germany has stayed out of the military action in Syria and pushed for a political solution.
Ahead of the Paris talks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed the importance of tackling the reasons hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing to Europe this year, and “that goes for Syria in particular.”
“We have all known for years that there can only be a solution there with Russia, and not against Russia,” Merkel said Thursday.
A jihadi cleric based in Syria warned Russia that the Arab country will be a “graveyard for invaders.”
Abdullah al-Muhaysini, a Saudi militant linked to the Nusra Front, said the Russian campaign could bog down like repeated foreign interventions in Afghanistan.