Posted by James the Russian Analyst
The Pentagon claimed that the Syrians seeking to liberate their own country’s territory from nearby ISIS militants posed a threat to American soldiers — despite being 50 kilometers away from al-Tanf — due to entering an agreed upon deconfliction zone. The Russians dispute that account, as well as claims that Russia failed to restrain its allies after the Americans contacted them, calling the strike a gross violation of Syria’s national sovereignty and international law.
Defense Secretary James Mattis’ remarks that the Syrians had violated an understanding established between the U.S. and Russia regarding deconflicted areas appeared to be an attempt to blur the lines in the media between deconfliction, which is about preventing Russo-American clashes, and the so-called safe zones created by tripartite agreement among the Russians, Turks and Iranians to set up ceasefire areas between Damascus and non-ISIS/Al-Qaeda militants. Other than the autonomous Kurdish areas in the northeast of the country, there are no ‘safe zones’ designated for the Americans in any agreements between Washington and Moscow, which would be tantamount to allowing the U.S. and Jordanians to partition the country.
This week, reports from the pro-Damascus site Al-Masdar News that Russian spetsnaz and VDV advisers are now openly operating alongside the Syrians and their Shi’a allies in the Suweida province close to the Jordanian border, is an indication that the Russian/Iranian alliance will not back down and allow the U.S. to prevent them from restoring at least partial Syrian government control along the border with Iraq. The reason is not to maintain, as many Washington think tankers falsely understand, a flow of arms along the so-called ‘Shi’a crescent’ overland from Iran through Iraq to the anti-Israel Lebanese Hezbollah. Those weapons are flown into Hezbollah warehouses inside Syria (which the Israelis bomb just about anytime they please using standoff missiles) instead of being shipped overland. What the Syrians really need from an open border with Iraq is manpower: thousands of Iraqi Shi’a militiamen, freed up from liberating Mosul, to secure their own country’s vast desert territories from ISIS.
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