Syria Blames U.S. in Base Bombing, but Americans Blame Russia

[shiryu]

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syria on Monday said a United States-led coalition had bombed a Syrian military base in the east of the country, killing three soldiers, wounding at least 13 and destroying vehicles and equipment. The United States denied the Syrian accusation and said a Russian warplane appeared to have been responsible.

The Syrian accusation, in a statement carried by the official news agency, was the first time that President Bashar al-Assad’s government had held the Americans responsible for bombing a Syrian military facility since the United States began airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria more than a year ago.

The statement said that the bombing had been conducted Sunday evening in Deir al-Zour Province, and that Syria had sent letters of protest to the United Nations calling it “a heinous aggression by the coalition.”

American military officials said the coalition had carried out airstrikes in the province on Sunday, but they said no Syrian military positions had been struck. The Americans seemed anxious to avoid an escalation of tensions with Mr. Assad’s government.

A statement from the United States-led Combined Joint Task Force said that the coalition had conducted four airstrikes on Sunday, “all against oil well heads,” about 35 miles from the base. “We did not strike any vehicles or personnel targets in this area,” the statement said. “We have no indication any Syrian soldiers were even near our strikes.”

A senior United States official later attributed any deaths and any damage to the Syrian base to what he called “a screw-up” by the Russians, who joined the Syria war in September as allies of Mr. Assad and have conducted airstrikes with Backfire bombers and other aerial armaments.

“We’ve got a radar track showing a Backfire bomber flying directly over the town that the Syrians named a few minutes before the first claims that we killed some Syrian troops,” the American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details.

Russian officials had no immediate comment on either the Syrian government’s accusations against the American-led coalition or the American response implicating the Russians. But Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, reiterated what he called the need for a combined effort to vanquish extremist militants in Syria.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/world/middleeast/syria-airstrikes.html?ref=world

[zenitzz]

That is quite a headline: 3 killed by US led strikes and Obama says Putin did it. Well Obama used to blame Bush for his F++ ups, now he blames Putin. The boy of excuse after excuse after excuse we are stuck with for 13 months more.

[bryant.coleman]

Once again the real intentions of the Americans have come out in the open. Deir ez-Zor is a strategically important town, which is under siege from the Islamic State for more than three years now. Thousands of regime troops are stuck there, along with tens of thousands of civilians, including minorities such as Yazidis and Christians. The ISIS has been trying to over-run this city for many months now, without any luck. Seems to me that the American Air Force is actually helping the ISIS to over-run Deir ez-Zor.

[bitsmichel]

Feds wants to get rid of Assad. This is why they support "moderate rebels" and are against Russia.

[croato]

American military officials are full of shit. Russians would never make that sort of mistake and Syria forces knows who were bombing them. USA desperately want to get rid of Assad and lower Russia influence at ME.

[Snail2]

Interesting. Until now the Russians and the SAA cooperated pretty well together, bombed the right targets, but as soon as US war planes turned up somehow they got confused and bombed themselves . Well, that really makes sense .

[Nemo1024]

Interesting. Until now the Russians and the SAA cooperated pretty well together, bombed the right targets, but as soon as US war planes turned up somehow they got confused and bombed themselves . Well, that really makes sense .

A good summary. Here is some additional info that demontrates far-fetchedness of the American retort.

Russia, in addition to the bombing campaign, acts as a coordinator of the anti-ISIS operation. Its space and aerial recon is relayed to the Syrian and Iranian ground forces. Russia knows exactly, where both the coalition and the terrorists are at any given moment. As a sign of good will, Russia also shared this information with USNATO until it was used against Russia in a backstabbing shooting down of the Russian bomber.

What USA tries to do now, is to project its voluntaristic bombing operandi on Russia, while in fact all Russian strikes are coordinated with and approved by the Syrian headquarters. Also, misunderstandings are difficult as Syrians speak Russian, and most of the Syrian high command studied in USSR/Russia, so they speak the same terminology.

The only wildcard in Syria now is US air force, which, in violation of the international law, invaded Syria and bombs whatever it please, refusing any cooperation with the coalition. It's the same if Russia decided to bomb Texas, just because it didn't like the Bushes there...


Some good news:

After negotiations with the "opposition" forces, they abandoned Homs and the city is now back in Syrian control. Homs is where destruction of Syria started 4 years ago...

And:

Russian Submarines Target ISIL (Daesh) in Syria from Mediterranean. What Does it Mean?
https://futuristrendcast.wordpress.com/2015/12/08/first-vid-russian-subs-target-isil-daesh-in-syria-from-mediterranean-what-does-it-mean/

[bryant.coleman]

American military officials are full of shit. Russians would never make that sort of mistake and Syria forces knows who were bombing them. USA desperately want to get rid of Assad and lower Russia influence at ME.

The Americans are double crossing the Russians ever since the Russian intervention began in Syria. First, they leaked the flight path of the Russian Su-24 to the Turks, who shot it down killing one of the pilots. And now, they are bombing the regime forces, which are allied to the Russians. On both the occasions, the Americans have claimed that they are not aware of any of this.