The US will work with allies to “expel every last Iranian boot” from Syria, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says.

Mr Pompeo warned there would be no US reconstruction aid for areas controlled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad until Iran and its proxies had left.

He also criticized ex-President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, saying he had made “dire misjudgments”.

Mr Pompeo was speaking in Cairo three weeks after President Donald Trump said US troops were pulling out of Syria.

The announcement had shocked US allies and sparked strong criticism in Washington.

• War-weary Syrians in Manbij wait to learn fate
• Trump rewrites US-Syria policy
• After the caliphate: Has IS been defeated?

Mr Pompeo, who has been seeking to reassure allies following Mr Trump’s surprise announcement, said: “America will not retreat until the terror fight is over. We will labour tirelessly alongside you to defeat Isis [the Islamic State group], al-Qaeda and other jihadists that threaten our security and yours.”

He said that the US was a “force for good” in the Middle East, adding: “Where America retreats, chaos follows.”

Why did Pompeo mention Iran?

Iran, alongside Russia, has been supporting the Syrian government in the Syrian civil war, providing arms, military advisers, and reportedly combat troops.

The US is deeply suspicious of Iranian activity in the Middle East and views it as a destabilising force in the region.

It is also an ally of Israel and Saudi Arabia, two of Iran’s foes.

On Thursday, Mr Pompeo said: “We will not ease our campaign to stop Iran’s malevolent influence and actions against this region and the world.”

He added that American sanctions against Iran were “the strongest in history and will keep getting tougher”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif mocked Mr Pompeo’s speech, saying that wherever the US interferes, “chaos, repression and resentment follow”.

How did Pompeo criticize Obama – and why?

Mr Pompeo did not directly name Mr Trump’s predecessor. However, he referred frequently to a key speech Mr Obama gave in Cairo in 2009, where he had called for “a new beginning” for the US and the Middle East.

Mr Pompeo said: “In this very city, another American stood before you. He told you that radical Islamist terrorism does not stem from ideology… He told you that the United States and the Muslim world needed ‘a new beginning.’ The results of these misjudgments have been dire.”

“We were timid about asserting ourselves when the times – and our partners – demanded it,” he said.

The Trump administration has been critical of Mr Obama’s decision to strike a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear activities, and had accused him of being too soft on Islamist terrorism, and a poor ally to Israel.

National Security Action, a think tank involving many of Mr Obama’s former policy advisers, criticized Mr Pompeo’s speech.

“That this administration feels the need, nearly a decade later, to take pot-shots at an effort to identify common ground between the Arab world and the West speaks not only to the Trump administration’s pettiness, but also to its lack of a strategic vision,” it said in a statement

“Together with the broader administration he represents, Pompeo sees Islam as an enemy, human rights as a side concern, and autocrats worthy of embrace,” the group added.

‘Barely a mention of democracy’

Analysis by Barbara Plett Usher, BBC News, Washington

Mike Pompeo framed his speech as the anti-Obama policy – a return to a strong US that wasn’t afraid to help its friends and be more proactive as “a force for good”.

He accused the former president of underestimating the viciousness and tenacity of Islamist extremism and said his timid approach to the Middle East had both emboldened Iran and contributed to the rise of Islamic State militants.

His argument ignored the fact that Mr Obama’s Cairo speech was trying to repair damage with the Muslim world wrought by the wars of George W Bush.

Nor did it signal a new interventionism: Mr Pompeo insisted President Trump was committed to fully dismantling Islamic State despite his decision to pull US troops out of Syria, but wanted partners play a bigger role.

And unlike his Republican predecessor Condoleezza Rice, who also took a turn at the Cairo podium, he made barely a mention of democracy.

In essence his speech was a clear declaration that the Trump administration’s top priority would be to counter Iran, as well as protect Israel, and suggested that would be the benchmark for judging America’s still largely authoritarian Arab allies.

What is the US approach to Syria?

The US, along with Turkey, Gulf Arab states, and Jordan, has been supporting some rebel groups.

Some 2,000 US military personnel are reported to be in Syria, and have been involved in fighting Islamic State militants.

• Syria war: Who’s fighting whom?

In December, Mr Trump said he was withdrawing all remaining troops because IS had been “defeated”, adding “they’re all coming back and they’re coming back now”.

The announcement shocked allies and several US defense officials, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, resigned shortly afterwards.

Since then, US officials have appeared to row back slightly on the decision. Mr Trump said the troops would be pulled out “slowly”, while National Security Adviser John Bolton said the withdrawal would depend on certain conditions.

Analysts have described the administration’s Syria policy as “messy” and confusing for allies.

• Why Trump’s love affair with generals turned sour
• Pentagon chief of staff Kevin Sweeney resigns

Mr Pompeo’s Thursday speech appeared to be an attempt to reassure partners, while also reiterating Mr Trump’s decision to pull out troops.

“President Trump has made the decision to bring our troops home from Syria… but this isn’t a change of mission. We remain committed to the complete dismantling of the Isis [IS] threat,” he said.

Other stops in Mr Pompeo’s Middle East tour will include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46828810

The post US to expel every last Iranian boot from Syria – Pompeo first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Russia, a key ally of Syrian government, joined the seven-year war in 2015 [File: Alexei Nikolsky/Reuters]

Russia has completed the delivery of an S-300 surface-to-air missile system to the Syrian military as part of new security measures following the downing of a Russian plane last month.

Russian Defense Minister Sergi Shoigu on Tuesday said at a meeting of the country’s security council that its army had “finished the deliveries of S-300 systems” including a total of four launch platforms.

Shoigu said it would take three months to train the Syrian military to operate the new air defence systems, while the integration of Russian and Syrian air defence assets into a single automated system will be completed by October 20.

“We now control a close zone of up to 50km (30 miles) and the far zone of 200km (124 miles) from where attacks on the Syrian territory were launched,” Shoigu said.

Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, joined the seven-year war in 2015.

The decision to deliver the modern defense system was reached following the shooting down of a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft, which was accidentally hit by a Syrian missile, killing 15 troops.

Moscow said Israel was culpable as the Il-20 had caught in the crossfire as four Israeli F-16 jets attacked targets in northwestern Syria.

The Israeli military said Syria’s indiscriminate air defence fire was the cause of the incident.

‘A serious escalation’

The United States has called the Russian move to arm Syrian military “a serious escalation”.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Tuesday said she could not confirm that Russia had delivered the system to Syria, but said it would be a “concern” if it had.

“I hope that they did not,” Nauert told reporters in Washington, DC, when asked about the Russian announcement. “That would be sort of a serious escalation.”

Russia-Israel tightrope

Israel has, in the past six years, carried out hundreds of attacks inside Syria, varying from firing rockets to air raids, which have increased in intensity and frequency since 2012, when Iranian paramilitary fighters joined the conflict.

Israel has carried out about 200 air raids in the last two years, according to its officials.

Since it joined the Syrian conflict, Russia has generally turned a blind eye to Israeli attacks inside the country.

Israel and Russia have also maintained a hotline to prevent their air forces from clashing in the skies over Syria.

The post Russia delivers S-300 missile system to Syria first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The U.S. has struck Syrian government targets in defiance of Russian warnings and killed Russian volunteer fighters, but the seven-year conflict has yet to see any direct confrontations between the U.S. and Russia. In an exclusive interview aired Thursday by Russia’s state-owned RT news channel, Assad credited Russia with defusing what could have been a clash between the world’s leading military powers as the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) was defeated and both local and international rivalries deepened.

“In reality, we were close to have direct conflict between the Russian forces and the American forces, and fortunately, it has been avoided, not by the wisdom of the American leadership but by the wisdom of the Russian leadership, because it is not in the interest of anyone, anyone in this world, and first of all the Syrians, to have this conflict,” Assad told RT.

“We need the Russian support, but we need at the same time to avoid the American foolishness in order to be able to stabilize our country,” he added.

U.S. Army soldiers conduct training drills and fire missions with M142 High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) at an undisclosed location in Syria between the months of August and September 2017. Two separate offensives waged by a U.S.-led coalition and the Russia-backed Syrian military mostly defeated ISIS across eastern Syria last year.MARINE CORPS SARGEANT MATTHEW CALLAHAN/DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

The U.S. was an early supporter of efforts to overthrow Assad as he faced a 2011 uprising also backed by Sunni Muslim monarchies and Turkey. As the Syrian opposition became increasingly jihadi in nature and ISIS emerged from a post-U.S. invasion insurgency in Iraq, the U.S. formed a coalition to battle the militants as they spread across the two Arab countries in 2014. Iran, an ally of both the Iraqi and Syrian governments, helped fight the jihadis by mobilizing Shiite Muslim militias and, in 2015, Russia entered the fight in support of Assad.

Russian and Iranian support has helped the Syrian leader reclaim most major cities and provinces seized by rebels and jihadis, save for the territories now in the hands of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a mostly Kurdish alliance that includes Arabs and ethnic minorities as well. Both factions have succeeded in nearly wiping out ISIS altogether, and Kurdish fighters have worked both alongside and against pro-Syrian government forces at times, but Assad warned Thursday he would not hesitate to use force to retake what they control if they refused to negotiate.

Related: Syria’s Assad tells Trump, “What you say is what you are” after being called “animal” by U.S. president

In response to Assad’s remarks, chief Pentagon spokeswoman Dana W. White told a press briefing Thursday that the U.S. mission “remains to defeat ISIS in Syria, our desire is not to get involved in the Syrian civil war.” Assad rejected the term “civil war” in the RT interview, describing the conflict “as mercenaries, Syrians, and foreigners being paid by the West in order to topple the government”

Marine Corps Lieutenant General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. also weighed in on the potential of a conflict between U.S.-led coalition and the Syrian military during Thursday’s briefing, saying “any interested party in Syria should understand that attacking U.S. forces or our coalition partners would be a bad policy.”

The first confirmed incident between Syrian and U.S. forces took place in Deir Ezzor in September 2016, when U.S. airstrikes killed dozens of Syrian soldiers besieged by ISIS in what the Pentagon said was an accident. As President Donald Trump came to office, he called for the U.S. to focus on battling ISIS and quit funding anti-Assad rebels. This changed in April 2017, however, when he ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on a Syrian military airport in response to allegations of a chemical attack in Idlib.

Russian soldiers are seen as they guard a checkpoint near Al-Wafideen camp in Damascus, Syria, on March 2. Russia warned that any U.S. attack that threatened the lives of its troops fighting alongside the Syrian military would face retaliation.OMAR SANADIKI/REUTERS

That summer saw a number of clashes between pro-Syrian government fighters, consisting of various militias, and the Syrian Democratic Forces. The U.S. unilaterally declared the southern border crossing of Al-Tanf to be a deconfliction zone and launched several aerial assaults on forces fighting on behalf of Assad, including the downing of a Syrian Su-22 that the Syrian Democratic Forces accused of bombing their positions. Following this June 19 incident, Russia warned it would treat U.S. aircraft flying in its designated area of operations as “targets.”

The most serious battle took place in February. Hundreds of pro-Syrian government fighters, including Russian citizens, were reportedly killed after the U.S.-led coalition claimed they launched a massive assault on Syrian Democratic Forces positions in Deir Ezzor. Russia said its nationals were not fighting on behalf of the armed forces, but Syria called for the United Nations to condemn the U.S.

Related: U.S. military will leave Syria base in deal with Russia, reports say

The U.S. struck a second time days later when it hit a Russian-built T-72 tank that reportedly approached Syrian Democratic Forces positions. Defense Secretary James Mattis said in March that a third incident was avoided through the use of a deconfliction line maintained between the U.S. and Russian militaries.

Two months later and shortly after he suggested he would soon withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, Trump again ordered military action against the Syrian government in response to an alleged toxic gas attack last month. Russia denied Assad’s culpability and some officials had even threatened to shoot down U.S. missiles along with the ships and aircraft firing them if Russians lives were put at risk.

The April 13 attack saw the U.S., France and the U.K. blast three Syrian state-run research centers suspected of developing chemical weapons. During his RT interview, Assad said that he had information suggesting Trump had planned “a comprehensive attack all over Syria,” but that Russia’s threat “pushed the West to make it on a much smaller scale.”

People pass near a portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hanging in Damascus, Syria, on May 31. Assad warned U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, who have worked both alongside and against him at times, that he would not hesitate to use force to retake the third of the country they control.LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Despite the occasional hostilities, the U.S. and Russia have maintained regular contact in Syria, and U.S.-led coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon said last month that the coalition even provides Russia with information on potential ISIS positions on the western side of the Euphrates River that divides the two campaigns. The U.S. has called for Assad’s other ally, Iran, to withdraw.

The U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia are opposed to Iran’s growing influence in Iraq and Syria, where Iran-backed militias have grown increasingly powerful after working alongside government troops. Israel has launched airstrikes against Iranian and pro-Iran positions in Syria and has threatened to escalate its offensive. Iran has refused even Russian calls to withdraw, and Syria has said it continues to welcome both Russian and Iranian support in the conflict, while calling for the U.S. and Turkey to withdrawimmediately.

As the resurgent Syrian military prepares for a new offensive in the south, near the Israeli and Jordanian borders, international powers have scrambled to prevent an all-out war. The U.S., Russia and Jordan are reportedly attempting to broker a deal between Iran, Israel and Syria that would see all Syrian and non-Syrian militias withdraw from the southern border region and allow for the Syrian military to regain control. Such a deal may also reportedly include the dismantling of the U.S. base at Al-Tanf, where Syria, Russia and Iran accuse the U.S. of supporting jihadi groups.

This story has been updated with remarks made by Pentagon spokeswoman Dana W. White and Joint Staff Director  Marine Corps Lieutenant General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. during a press briefing.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/us-russia-military-came-close-fighting-each-other-syria-assad-says-951675

The post U. S. and Russia military came ‘close’ to fighting each other in Syria, Assad says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

JERUSALEM — Israel has flexed its military muscles in recent months as the regional balance of power has pitched further in favor of its most bitter adversaries: Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.

Analysts and former senior Israeli military officers say Israel is showing that it will act with force to protect its interests, while using just enough of it to limit its enemies without sparking a war. But it’s a precarious line to tread, and even a small misstep could lead to conflict, they say.

Israel is scrambling to adjust as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has taken the upper hand in his country’s six-year war, propped up by an emboldened Iran and an array of Shiite militias, including Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to back him.

The Israeli government had expressed frustration as the Trump administration focused on fighting Islamic State militants without, in Israel’s opinion, sufficiently limiting Iran and its proxies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly criticized a U.S.-Russia cease-fire deal in southern Syria for not including provisions to stop Iranian expansion.

Israel is now making itself heard. Last week Israeli jets buzzed so low over southern Lebanon that they shattered windows and caused panic. That followed the bombing of a military site in Syria earlier in the month that had been linked to missile production for Hezbollah.

On Tuesday, the army used a Patriot missile to shoot down a drone that neared its airspace.

[Israel is courting Syrian ‘hearts and minds’ to keep Hezbollah away]

Threats have escalated on both sides. “If the Zionist regime makes any wrong move, Haifa and Tel Aviv will be razed,” Iran’s army chief Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi warned this week in comments published by Fars news agency, referring to Israeli cities within the range of Hezbollah rockets.

Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war in 2006 that caused heavy casualties, and both sides claimed victory. Since then, the Syrian war has provided Hezbollah fighters with a training opportunity, while Israel estimates that it has built up a stockpile of more than 100,000 rockets.

Israel fears Iran will help Hezbollah upgrade to more accurate precision-guided missiles and establish a permanent military presence in Syria, from where they could eventually turn their focus south.

“Generally speaking, this is the kind of threat we can’t live with,” said Brig. Gen. Nitzan Nuriel, a former Israeli Defense Forces officer who was deputy commander of the division responsible for the Lebanese front during the 2006 war. “This is the kind of threat we need to deal with.”

In recent months, Netanyahu has accused Iran of establishing long-range missile-manufacturing sites in both Lebanon and Syria. Satellite images showing one alleged site, near the port city of Baniyas, were shared with the press.

Israel is keen to leverage more favorable outcomes in Syrian cease-fire deals where it feels its interests have been ignored, and public threats and messages are meant as much for Israel’s allies as its enemies, Nuriel said.

“At the same time we will try to keep Hezbollah weak to remind them what happened in 2006,” he said.

After speaking out against the “de-escalation” deal for southern Syria reached by the United States and Russia on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, Netanyahu traveled to Sochi to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A high-level delegation was also dispatched to Washington.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov later made a public assurance that Israel’s security interests in southern Syria were being taken into account.

[How far could the dangerous endgame in eastern Syria go?]

In a speech last month, Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah mocked Netanyahu for “crying” over the defeat of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Nasrallah has repeatedly warned Israel against attacking Lebanon.

“If the Israelis think they can now make war in Lebanon, then they are making a big mistake. In Syria we have learned to attack,” said a senior official from the military alliance of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the press.

“The rhetoric on both sides is a substitute for action — a way of reinforcing deterrence without having to take military action — and a way of saving face,” said Faysal Itani, a fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “But I do think things are trending negatively.”

Netanyahu tried to drive his point home at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, saying that “those who threaten us with annihilation put themselves in mortal peril.” Israel will act to prevent Iran from opening “new terror fronts” on Israel’s northern border, he said.

He also pushed for changes to the international deal limiting Iran’s nuclear activities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 72nd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York on Sept. 19. (Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

“This is all classic Netanyahu,” said Ofer Zalzberg, a senior analyst at International Crisis Group. “Saying ‘hold me back before I do something,’ but I don’t see Israel launching a preemptive war. The next war between Israel and Hezbollah will be dramatic for Israel’s population and will have consequences for whoever is in power.”

But the prospect is not impossible; there are some Israeli officials advocating intervention, he said, describing Israel as “panicked.” “Advocates are saying bomb now.”

They see a window of opportunity. While Syria has restrained from retaliating against Israeli strikes on its soil, that is likely to change as the war draws to an end, raising the stakes of the occasional intervention with airstrikes that Israel is currently engaged in.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s growing strength has come at a cost, one that could cause personnel problems in the event of renewed conflict.

The group does not publish figures for the number of their members who have fought and died in Syria, but more than 1,000 have been killed according to one study of Arabic language press coverage of funerals in Lebanon.

On a recent day in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a steady trickle of relatives passed through a newly opened cemetery for fighters recently killed in Syria. Marble slabs are adorned with photographs of the men in fatigues, some decorated with roses for Father’s Day.

Sitting quietly at the gravestone of a commander killed last year, a woman named Rukiya said her son died in the battle to recapture the northern city of Aleppo. “He knew he didn’t have to go, but he didn’t listen to me,” she said. “The resistance was everything to him.”

But during the war, Hezbollah has also gained experience. The Israeli military now fears a scenario in which Hezbollah, which formed in the 1980s to fight the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, could raid one of Israel’s 22 border communities as war in Syria winds down.

[Hezbollah accuses the U.S. of putting lives at stake by hounding ISIS convoy]

In April, Hezbollah organized a rare press trip to the area to highlight what appeared to be newly constructed fortifications on the Israeli side of the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone between the two countries.

“The Israeli enemy is undertaking these fortifications and building these obstacles in fear of an advance,” said a Hezbollah commander who went by the nom de guerre Haj Ihab.

Israel’s Defense Ministry confirmed that it was indeed bolstering its defenses, including walls near Israel’s northern communities that are vulnerable to cross-border sniper fire or antitank missiles, Israeli media reported. It also said the project will cost some $34.7 million.

“We are strengthening the border based on the understanding that in any future conflict, Hezbollah would make a concerted effort to cross the border,” said an Israeli Defense Forces official in the Northern Command who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

In the meantime, Israel will continue its strategy of “deterrence and prevention,” Nuriel said, managing the risks of escalation.

“You need to ask yourself, if you do this, what will the enemy do?” he said. “Many times we decide taking action is better.”

But Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah began when militants launched a cross-border raid on an Israeli patrol, killing three Israeli soldiers and abducting two. Nasrallah later said that if he’d known how Israel would react, Hezbollah would not have carried out the raid. The war left 1,000 Lebanese and nearly 160 Israelis dead. Now the stakes are higher.

“Syria made the machine faster,” said Kamal Wazne, a professor at the American University of Beirut who studies the group. “A confrontation is going to be deadly, destructive and painful for both sides.”

Loveluck reported from Beirut. Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/with-sharp-words-and-stealth-strikes-israel-sends-a-message-to-hezbollah-and-us/2017/09/20/168282e4-98e2-11e7-af6a-6555caaeb8dc_story.html

The post With sharp words and stealth strikes, Israel sends a message to Hezbollah and U.S. first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.