Russia Two Dozen More Fighter Bombers and Ground Attack Aircraft to Syria

Eric Schmitt and NEIL MacFARQUHAR

September 22, 2015

Russia Expands Fleet in Syria With Jets That Can Attack Targets on Ground

WASHINGTON — Russia has sharply increased the number of combat aircraft at an air base near Latakia, Syria, giving its forces a new ability to strike targets on the ground in the war-stricken country.

Over the weekend, Russia deployed a dozen Su-24 Fencer and a dozen Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack planes, bringing to 28 the number of warplanes at the base, a senior United States official said on Monday. Until the weekend, the only combat planes there had been four Flanker air-to-air fighters.

The deployment of some of Russia’s most advanced ground attack planes and fighter jets as well as multiple air defense systems at the base near the ancestral home of President Bashar al-Assad appears to leave little doubt about Moscow’s goal to establish a military outpost in the Middle East. The planes are protected by at least two or possibly three SA-22 surface-to-air, antiaircraft systems, and unarmed Predator-like surveillance drones are being used to fly reconnaissance missions.

“With competent pilots and with an effective command and control process, the addition of these aircraft could prove very effective depending on the desired objectives for their use,” said David A. Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who planned the American air campaigns in 2001 in Afghanistan and in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. 

In addition, a total of 15 Russian Hip transport and Hind attack helicopters are also now stationed at the base, doubling the number of those aircraft from last week, the American official said. For use in possible ground attacks, the Russians now also have nine T-90 tanks and more than 500 marines, up from more than 200 last week.

“The equipment and personnel just keep flowing in,” said the American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence reports. “They were very busy over the weekend.”

So far, the Russian warplanes have remained parked, the official said. But the additional attack planes — comparable to the jets the United States and its allies are flying against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq — have heightened fears within the Pentagon and in European capitals about the risk of an inadvertent confrontation between Russia’s military and the American-led coalition.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter raised those concerns with Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, in a phone call on Friday. At the White House’s direction, Mr. Carter began a dialogue with Mr. Shoigu aimed at ensuring that American and Russian aircraft avoid unintended incidents as they operate over Syria.

But American officials said there were no immediate plans for Mr. Carter or Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to contact their Russian counterparts despite the latest military developments.

“At this point, this is a diplomatic issue,” the official said.

Secretary of State John Kerry has said the Obama administration welcomed a role for Russian forces if it is focused on combating the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and not on propping up Mr. Assad.

“But if what they’re doing is, in fact, propping up the Assad regime,” John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, said on Monday, “then that’s an entirely different issue altogether, because it is the Assad regime that has been a magnet for extremists inside Syria.”

Mr. Kirby declined to comment on specific Russian military operations near Latakia. The Kremlin has painted the deployments of warplanes and air defenses as a mustering of forces to confront the Islamic State. But Western analysts see its effort to begin bolstering both Mr. Assad’s forces and its own presence on the ground in Syria as having several aims. One is to buttress Syria, Russia’s most important ally in the Middle East, as the government there loses ever more ground to various insurgent forces. The other is an attempt by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to divert attention from the crisis in Ukraine and force the West to acknowledge that Russia still has an important role as a global power.

Mr. Putin met in Moscow on Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who had gone there to seek assurance that the new Russian hardware and forces — in particular, fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles — would not target Israeli forces. Israel also does not want Russian weaponry flowing to the militant group Hezbollah.

“All actions taken by Russia in the region have always been and will be very responsible,” Mr. Putin told him.

But the threats emanating from Syria led to disagreement between the two leaders.

Mr. Netanyahu said Iran and Syria had sought to provide modern weapons to Hezbollah to open a second front against Israel. But Mr. Putin disagreed, saying the Syrian Army was in such a dire situation that it could not possibly take part in a war against Israel.

“We know that the Syrian Army and Syria as a whole are in no condition to open a second front; they need to save their own state,” Mr. Putin said with a brief chuckle in remarks broadcast by Russia’s state-run satellite television channel, Rossiya 24.

He acknowledged attacks by Hezbollah, however, and said it was important to prevent the transfer of weapons to the organization. Iran has long supplied Hezbollah through Syria.

Mr. Putin said Moscow condemned those attacks but emphasized that the weapons used were not Russian. “As far as I know, these attacks are carried out using improvised missile systems,” he said.

Israel has been able to bomb suspected convoys to Hezbollah with impunity since the uprising against Mr. Assad’s government turned into a civil war in 2011, forcing Syria to concentrate on the internal threat.

Mr. Netanyahu said Iran and Syria had provided Hezbollah with “thousands” of rockets fired at Israel over the years. “Iran, under the auspices of the Syrian Army, is attempting to build a second terrorist front against us from the Golan Heights,” he said, according to a transcript released by his office.

He added that Israel wished to continue blocking arms deliveries, although the government has always been somewhat coy about acknowledging its cross-border air raids.