TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2015 | WEST HAWAII TODAY
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Triathlon Athletes cycle on Queen Kaahumanu Hwy.on Wednesday.
A triathlon athlete swims in Kailua Bay. on Wednesday, training for the Ironman Race on Oct 10.
PHOTOS BY LAURA SHIMABUKU/
WEST HAWAII TODAY
A triathlon athlete cycles on Queen Kaahumanu Hwy. on Wednesday.
Russian Soldiers Join Syria Fight
MOSCOW—Ratcheting
up the confrontation over
the Syria war, Russia said
Monday that its “volun-
teer” ground forces would
join the fight, and NATO
warned the Kremlin after
at least one Russian war-
plane trespassed Turkey’s
airspace.
The saber-rattling on
both sides reflected a dan-
gerous new big-power
entanglement in the war,
as longstanding differenc-
es between Russia and
the United States over
President Bashar Assad of
Syria and his opponents
increasingly plays out not
only in the halls of the
United Nations but on the
battlefield in Syria.
Russia squared off with
Turkey and its NATO allies,
calling the air incursion on
Saturday an innocent mis-
take because of foul weath-
er — a claim U.S. officials
rejected.
News services said
late Monday that a sec-
ond airspace violation
might have been com-
mitted on Sunday, but
that report could not be
immediately confirmed.
The Russian air and
ground deployments in
Syria challenge the regional
policies of President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey,
President Barack Obama
and NATO.
A Russian ground force
could fundamentally alter
the conflict, which has left
250,000 people dead and
displaced half the country’s
population since it started
in 2011.
Although
President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia
said he would not put
troops in Syria, the plan for
so-called volunteers was
disclosed on Monday by his
top military liaison to the
Parliament, Adm. Vladimir
Komoyedov. It seemed
similar to Russia’s stealth
tactic in using soldiers to
seize Crimea from Ukraine
in March of 2014 and to
aid pro-Moscow rebels in
eastern Ukraine.
Moreover, U.S. military
officials said they believed
more than 600 Russian
military personnel were
already on the ground in
Syria, not counting air-
crews, and that tents for
nearly 2,000 people had
been seen at Russia’s air
base near Latakia, in
northwest Syria near the
Turkish border.
Russia intensified the
airstrikes it began in Syria
last week, with new attacks
on territory near Palmyra
that is indisputably held
by the Islamic State. But
Russian targets remain a
matter of deep contention.
Russian officials say they
are targeting the Islamic
State, though their bombs
have mainly hit territories
held by other insurgents
who oppose Assad, Russia’s
ally. The strikes have hit
the Army of Conquest,
an Islamist faction that
includes the Nusra Front,
al-Qaida’s Syrian affili-
ate, as well as more-secu-
lar groups that often fight
alongside it, including
some that have received
covert U.S. aid.
The Obama administra-
tion, by contrast, says its
own airstrikes against the
Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria can succeed only with
a political transition that
ends with Assad’s removal.
The
administration’s
position was ridiculed
on Monday by Sergey V.
Lavrov, Russia’s foreign
minister, who said the U.S.
airstrikes, which began
more than a year ago,
had done little militarily.
In comments carried by
Russia’s official Tass news
agency, Lavrov said that
even the Americans had
acknowledged their fal-
tering efforts to create a
force of so-called moderate
insurgents in Syria.
“Nobody knows about
these people,” he said.
“Nobody’s really heard
about
the
moderate
opposition.”
Foreign
Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif of
Iran, Assad’s regional ally,
also was dismissive of the
U.S. efforts in Syria, both
to unseat Assad and to
combat the Islamic State.
Sounding emboldened by
the Russian airstrikes, Zarif
said at a talk in New York
that there was a difference
between Russia — which
was invited by Assad to
help — and the American-
led coalition that has been
bombing Syria. “Why are
you there?” he said. “Who
gave you the right to be
there?”
The Russian disclosure
that so-called volunteer
forces might soon be in
Syria fueled speculation
of an impending ground
offensive against insur-
gents, one that would
involve
unprecedented
coordination
between
Assad’s allies.
It could include Syria’s
army fortified by forc-
es from Russia, Iran
and the Lebanese mili-
tia Hezbollah, which has
deployed fighters in Syria
for years to help Assad.
Likely targets are Army of
Conquest insurgents who
threaten Assad’s coastal
strongholds from territo-
ry they have seized in the
northern province of Idlib.
In the aftermath of the
Turkish airspace incident
— which, at least in theory,
could have escalated into
a confrontation between
Russia and NATO — an
Obama administration offi-
cial called Russia’s behavior
“deliberately provocative,”
while Komoyedov said his
country’s “volunteers” on
the way to Syria “cannot be
stopped.”
As the global powers
postured, gaps also deep-
ened between local and
regional participants in
the war, and predictions
that the Russian action
would strengthen radicals
in the Syrian insurgency
appeared to be accurate.
Insurgent groups oppos-
ing both Assad and the
Islamic State, including
some supported by the
Americans, declared that
they would no longer par-
ticipate in any peace pro-
cess sponsored by Russia
— which they accused of
occupying their country.
Some vowed to work more
closely with the Nusra
Front.
Forty-one insurgent fac-
tions said in a statement
that Russia’s “brutal occu-
pation has cut the road to
any political solution,” the
latest challenge to diplo-
matic efforts by a special
U.N. envoy, Staffan de
Mistura.
Separately, in a state-
ment laden with sectarian
language, a group of prom-
inent Saudi Arabian cler-
ics called on Muslim and
Arab countries to support
a jihad, or holy war, against
Assad and his Russian and
Iranian patrons — even
comparing the Syrian war
to the Soviet Union’s inva-
sion of Afghanistan in the
1980s and the jihad against
it that drew fighters from
around the world.
BYANDREW E. KRAMER AND
ANNE BARNARD
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
