Tag Archives: Syria

U.S.-backed forces push back Islamic State in Raqqa campaign – officials

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters shoot a drone they said belonged to Islamic State fighters on the bank of the Euphrates river, west of Raqqa city, Syria April 8, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed forces fighting Islamic State in Syria advanced to within 2 km (1 mile) of a key stronghold near the jihadist group’s de facto capital of Raqqa on Tuesday, and a counter-attack by the militants was repulsed, officials said.

The multi-phased campaign by the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by air strikes and military advisers from a U.S.-led coalition, ultimately aims to oust Islamic State from Raqqa. IS is also losing ground to U.S.-backed offensives in Iraq.

Officials have given different estimates for how long the campaign will take, and the assault on Raqqa itself appears to have been delayed, after one high-ranking military official said it would begin at the start of April.

Meanwhile the immediate goal is to capture the city of Tabqa, some 40 km (25 miles) west of Raqqa, and a nearby dam on the Euphrates river, an official for the Raqqa campaign said.

“For now, the target in front of our eyes is the city of Tabqa, and the dam,” Gharib Rasho, a media official for the campaign, told Reuters.

He said the SDF had taken control of around 60 percent of the dam, after capturing its northern entrance last month. The SDF is made up of Syrian Arab and Kurdish forces, including a large contingent from the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.

On Tuesday, SDF forces thwarted an Islamic State counter-attack near Tabqa and advanced to within 2 km of the city from the east, an SDF statement said.

Rasho said Islamic State had been trying to break a siege the SDF had imposed on Tabqa by attacking both from inside and from areas to its south which Islamic State still holds.

It is unclear how many Islamic State insurgents remain in Tabqa, but Rasho said they were “few”, based on the estimates of residents fleeing the city.

Thousands of residents have left in recent weeks, though tens of thousands are thought to remain in Tabqa.

The militants were using car bombs, mortar fire and suicide attackers – methods similar to those the jihadists have employed to defend their urban bastion of Mosul in Iraq, he said.

WEEKS OR MONTHS?

Launched in November, the SDF offensive aims initially to isolate Raqqa, Islamic State’s main urban base in Syria. Forces have advanced on the city from the north, east and west. Encircling and capturing Tabqa is a major part of the campaign as the city and dam comprise a strategic base for IS.

The focus on Tabqa does not rule out a simultaneous assault on Raqqa, campaign officials have said.

But that assault appears already to have been delayed as Islamic State resistance keeps forces busy around Tabqa.

The head of the YPG said last month the Raqqa assault would begin at the start of April, and would take no more than a few weeks. The commander of the Raqqa operation, also a YPG official, later said the offensive to capture the city would likely last several months.

U.S. coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said Washington’s partners on the ground would choose when to move in on Raqqa. “Ultimately we are isolating Raqqa and we’re going to, at a time of our partner’s choosing, move in and liberate that city from Daesh (Islamic State),” he said in a statement.

“This is an important task. It’s the equivalent in Syria of what’s being done to eliminate the enemy in Mosul.”

The parallel U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul has also taken longer than the Iraqi government predicted. Fighting there rages on between the armed forces and jihadists who are holed up in its Old City.

(Additional reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh in Baghdad and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Michael Georgy/Mark Heinrich)

Investors play safe as Syria tensions rise

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in the Manhattan borough of New York, New York, U.S., April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – Nervous investors sought shelter in gold, Treasuries and the yen on Tuesday as growing tensions over Syria put the U.S. administration and Russia on a collision course.

European shares edged higher, reversing early falls, but Wall Street looked set to open lower, according to index futures <ESc1> <1YMc1>, as uncertainty over looming French presidential elections also simmered.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson carried a unified message from world powers to Moscow, denouncing Russian support for Syria, after a meeting with foreign ministers of the Group of Seven major advanced economies and Middle East allies.

Western countries blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for last week’s deadly gas attack. U.S. President Donald Trump responded by firing cruise missiles at a Syrian air base. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stood by Moscow’s ally Assad, who denies blame.

Gold <XAU=> hit its highest since November, emerging market stocks <.MSCIEF> were on their worst run of the year so far, while the euro <EURJPY=> fell to a four-month low versus a broadly stronger Japanese yen. <JPY=> [FRX/]

“It’s a relatively modest reaction but there is a lot of geopolitical risk in global markets at the moment,” said TD Securities European head of currency strategy Ned Rumpeltin.

“There is Syria, there is more uncertainty about the U.S. economy after relatively weak jobs numbers and we have French elections coming up.”

The latest polls from France are providing another twist in the race for the presidency, with far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon making ground against the rest of the pack before the first round of voting on April 23.

This has raised the possibility that Melenchon could square off against far-right leader Marine Le Pen – both of whom are eurosceptics – in the election’s decisive second round in May.

German Bunds yields dipped below 0.20 percent for the first time in more than five weeks, before edging higher, while French yields <FR10YT=TWEB> hit a one-week high of 0.96 percent leaving the gap between the two – a key gauge of investors’ concerns – at its widest in six weeks. [GVD/EUR]

“After Britain’s Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidential election surprised markets in 2016, could this event do the same?,” Mark Burgess, global head of equities at Columbia Threadneedle in London, wrote in a note.

Then pan-European STOXX 600 share index <.STOXX> eked out gains of 0.1 percent, led higher by miners <.SXPP> as the gold price rose. MSCI’s main index of Asia-Pacific shares, excluding Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> fell 0.2 percent. Emerging market shares were on track for their first four-day losing streak of 2017.

Gold <XAU=>, sought at times of global tension as a safe place to store wealth, last traded up 0.3 percent on the day at almost $1,258 an ounce. The precious metal hit a five-month high above $1,270 on Friday after the U.S. missile strike on Thursday.

The dollar fell 0.1 percent against a basket of other major currencies <.DXY>. The greenback weakened 0.4 percent to 110.53 yen <JPY=> and 0.2 percent to $1.0616 per euro <EUR=>. Sterling rose <GBP=D3> 0.2 percent to $1.2441.

Oil retreated from five-week highs hit earlier in the day as concerns about rising U.S. shale production offset a shutdown at Libya’s largest oilfield over the weekend and the U.S. strikes against Syria that had supported prices.

Global benchmark Brent <LCOc1> fell 4 cents to $55.94, breaking a six-session winning streak.

For Reuters Live Markets blog on European and UK stock markets see reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url=http://emea1.apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageId=livemarkets

(Additional reporting by Kit Rees, John Geddie, Ritvik Carvalho and Nigel Stephenson in London Editing by Keith Weir and Pritha Sarkar)

G7 powers seek broad support to isolate Syria’s Assad

(L-R) E.U. High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Italy's Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida pose for a family photo during a G7 for foreign ministers in Lucca, Italy April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Max Rossi

By Steve Scherer and Crispian Balmer

LUCCA, Italy (Reuters) – The Group of Seven major global powers were joined by Middle Eastern allies on Tuesday in a push to isolate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, hours before the U.S. secretary of state flies to Moscow, Assad’s top backer.

G7 foreign ministers sat down early on Tuesday with their counterparts from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Qatar – all of whom oppose Assad’s rule – to discuss the six-year-old civil war in Syria.

Pressure is building on Russian President Vladimir Putin to break ties with Assad, whose forces stand accused of launching a nerve gas attack on a rebel-held town last week that killed 87 people including 31 children.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump, with both agreeing that there was “a window of opportunity” to persuade Russia to break ties with Assad, May’s office said.

Also on Monday, Britain and Canada said sanctions could be tightened on Moscow if it continued to back Assad. Later in the day, Trump spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the U.S. strike on a Syrian airbase last week – launched in retaliation for the alleged chemical weapons attack – and thanked her for her support.

“I think we have to show a united position and that in these negotiations we should do all we can to get Russia out of Assad’s corner, at least to the point that they are ready to participate in finding a political solution,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday.

“It is the right moment to talk about this, how the international community, with Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Europe, with the U.S., can drive forward a peace process for Syria and avoid further military escalation of the conflict.”

ADDITIONAL STRIKES

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at the Syrian airbase near Homs on Friday and has said it is open to authorising additional strikes on Syria if its government uses chemical weapons again or deploys barrel bombs.

Assad’s allies have been robust in their response, however. A joint command centre made up of the forces of Russia, Iran and militias supporting the Syrian president said on Sunday that the U.S. strike crossed “red lines” and it would respond to any new aggression and increase its support for its ally.

The missile attack has increased expectations that Trump is ready to adopt a tougher stance with respect to Russia, and that he is ready to engage in world affairs instead of following the more isolationist stance he had previously taken.

Up until the chemical attack, Trump had said Washington would no longer act as the world’s guardian, especially if it was not in the interest of the United States.

But on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the site of a World War Two Nazi massacre in Italy and said Washington would never let such abuses go unchallenged.

“We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” Tillerson told reporters in Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

G7 efforts to build a united front against Assad comes just ahead of Tillerson’s trip to Moscow, the first for a high-ranking Trump administration official.

Russia has rejected accusations that Assad used chemical arms against his own people and has said it will not cut its ties with the Syrian president.

That means Tillerson, who has significant business experience with Russia as a former chief executive at Exxon Mobil but none in government, is about to face his toughest test yet in international diplomacy.

Besides Syria, the ministers will talk on Tuesday about Libya, where people smugglers operate with impunity and rival governments and militias vie for power.

Growing tensions with North Korea are also expected to be on the agenda, as the United States moves a navy strike group near the Korean peninsula amid concerns over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer and Hanna Rantala; Editing by Tom Heneghan, Crispian Balmer, Pravin Char)

For survivors of past Syrian nerve gassing, new attack brings back horror and despair

Abu Malek, one of the survivors of a chemical attack in the Ghouta region of Damascus that took place in 2013, uses his crutches to walk along a street in the Ghouta town of Ain Tarma, Syria

BEIRUT/EASTERN GHOUTA, Syria (Reuters) – It’s the dead children that still haunt Abu Ghassan, who was blinded for more than a month and paralysed for weeks by a nerve gas attack four years ago in a Damascus suburb. He recovered; 37 members of his family were among the hundreds of dead.

Last week, when another gas attack killed at least 87 people hundreds of miles to the north, the memories rushed back, hard. When he learned of it, he wept “like a child”, the 50 year-old recalls in Ain Tarma, one of three towns hit by poison gas in 2013 in areas near Damascus collectively known as the Ghouta.

Last week’s attack in the northern town of Khan Sheikhoun was the first time Western countries say the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad again used the banned nerve gas sarin since the attack four years ago in the Ghouta.

Damascus denies it was to blame for either attack, but the diplomatic effects of both were dramatic. Four years ago, the United States nearly bombed the Syrian government, only to pull back when Assad agreed to give up his chemical arsenal and submit to U.N. inspections. After last week’s attack, President Donald Trump fired U.S. cruise missiles at Syrian government targets for the first time.

Survivors of the Ghouta attack four years ago never lost the fear they could be gassed again at any moment, said Amer Zaydan, a 28-year-old school director from another part of eastern Ghouta. The new strike hammered it home.

“After the Khan Sheikhoun massacre, we’ve gone back to that first moment, as if we are the ones who went through it,” he said. “The people here are terrified.”

Since last week’s attack – which like those four years ago came just before dawn when the wind is the calmest and poison gas most effective – residents have activated a night watch, staying up to warn others in case of another attack.

Zaydan recalls seeing hundreds of dead people before falling unconscious himself as he tried to help victims. He was blinded for days. “It was like the end of days.”

“I don’t know what happened to the child I was holding at the time,” said Zaydan. Seven members of his family were killed. One of his cousins, presumed dead, was being prepared for burial when it was discovered he was still alive.

“We have not forgotten this thing. It cannot be forgotten, when you see hundreds of people dying, it’s a scene that cannot possibly be forgotten,” he said. “You walk through a district, you remember that here an entire family died, or here an entire district died.”

VINEGAR BY HIS SIDE

Abu Ghassan in Ain Tarma also lives with the constant fear of another strike.

He says he was saved only by his military training, covering his face with a wet shirt when he first sense the poison, while none of the friends he was with survived. Since then, he has always kept cloth and vinegar to hand in case of another attack.

Pieces of a rocket that bore the poison still litter the rubble-strewn floor of the apartment that it struck. Some parts were taken by U.N. inspectors, but the rest was kept in case it can one day be used in a war crimes tribunal, Abu Ghassan said.

Residents have returned to live in most of the apartment block. Abu Ghassan remembers returning home to the sight of dead birds and chickens in the street by the house.

Today, Syrian government forces are in a much stronger position than they were four years ago, and the opposition-held areas are even more vulnerable. The western Ghouta, where one of the strikes hit, is now under government control.

The eastern Ghouta, where two towns were hit, has been effectively under siege for years and more vulnerable than ever, say doctors, who have never been able to replenish supplies of atropine, the medicine used to treat nerve gas patients.

“After the massacre in Khan Sheikhoun, it’s like the Ghouta is on high alert. We feel as though we are next,” said Abu Ibrahim Baker, a surgeon who treated victims of the attack four years ago at two hospitals.

“If God forbid a massacre happens like the 2013 one, there will be three or four times the deaths, because we no longer have as much atropine or capacities to resist at all.”

Hammam Daoud, a doctor who was in western Ghouta during the 2013 attack, said he was immediately struck on seeing the images last week of bodies gone limp and patients foaming at the mouth.

“The pictures we saw from Khan Sheikhoun were similar to what we saw. The pictures of the victims, the symptoms were almost identical,” said Daoud, speaking from Turkey, where he moved a few months ago as part of a negotiated withdrawal that gave Assad’s opponents safe passage out of the area.

“It is hard to talk about, it was greater than anything you expect. Medically, the thoracic symptoms did not cease, no one was 100 percent better, and we were unable to treat them well, because we had no tools,” he said in a phone interview.

Seeing footage from Khan Sheikhoun, he said he felt “the same level of despair”.

“This despair will not leave us. The helplessness you feel because of these cases, it is unmatched,” he said. “I lost hope in everything.”

(Reporting by Tom Perry, Ellen Francis in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, and a reporter in the Eastern Ghouta; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)

Tillerson faces tough talks in Moscow amid increased tensions

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) and Italy's Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano arrive to attend a ceremony at the Sant'Anna di Stazzema memorial, dedicated to the victims of the massacre committed in the village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema by Nazis in 1944 during World War II, Italy

By Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Moscow this week will be an early test of whether the Trump administration can use any momentum generated by a missile attack on a Syrian air base to craft and execute a strategy to end the Syrian war.

Even before Trump ordered last week’s strike in retaliation for a nerve gas attack, Tillerson’s visit was certain to be dominated by thorny issues, including Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, an apparent violation of an important arms control treaty, and seeing what cooperation, if any, is possible in the fight against Islamic State.

Now, Tillerson, a former oil executive with no diplomatic experience, is charged with avoiding a major U.S. confrontation with Russia while exacting some concessions from Moscow. Those include getting rid of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s remaining chemical weapons and pressing Assad to negotiate Syria’s future.

The Kremlin said on Monday Tillerson was not scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit, a move that could point to tensions.

It may also suggest that Tillerson will instead follow strict diplomatic protocol and only meet his direct counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The State Department said last week a meeting had not been confirmed with Putin, who met with Tillerson when the Texan headed Exxon Mobil.

Russia, along with Iran, is Assad’s primary backer, and its intervention in Syria’s war has been crucial to ensuring his grip on power, although no longer over the entire country.

Tillerson said he had not seen hard evidence that Russia knew ahead of time about the chemical weapons attack, which killed at least 70 people, but he planned to urge Moscow to rethink its support for Assad in the April 12 talks.

“I’m hopeful that we can have constructive talks with the Russian government, with Foreign Minister Lavrov and have Russia be supportive of a process that will lead to a stable Syria,” Tillerson told ABC’s “The Week” on Sunday.

The U.S. cruise missile strike on Thursday, meant to dissuade Assad from using chemical weapons again, gives Tillerson more credibility with Russian officials and will boost his efforts, observers and former officials said. Tillerson is due to meet with Russian officials on Wednesday, and is expected to meet with Putin and Lavrov.

“The demonstration of the administration’s willingness to use force has the potential to add some leverage to the diplomacy,” said Antony Blinken, a deputy to former Secretary of State John Kerry.

The U.S. strike – ordered less than three days after the gas attack – could make it clear to Russia that the United States will hold Moscow accountable for Assad, Blinken said.

Tillerson ought to be “very matter of fact” in his meetings, Blinken said, sending Russia a message that: “If you don’t rein him in, we will take further action.”

Tillerson said on Thursday that Russia had “failed in its responsibility” to remove Syria’s chemical weapons under a 2013 agreement, which he argued showed Russia was either complicit with the gas attacks or “simply incompetent.” Securing a Russian commitment on eliminating Assad’s chemical weapons is likely to be first on his agenda, said Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration.

RUSSIAN LEVERAGE WITH ASSAD

The talks will be a major test of Tillerson’s diplomatic skills. As a former chief executive at Exxon Mobil, he has experience doing business in Russia, but no background in the often public negotiations that international diplomacy requires.

It also is unclear if Trump, who has expressed skepticism about multilateral institutions such as the European Union and United Nations, will have patience for the protracted negotiations that a comprehensive deal on Syria would require.

Russia condemned the missile strike as illegal and Putin said it would harm U.S.-Russia ties. Moscow also said it would keep military channels of communication open with Washington, but would not exchange any information through them.

It was an unforeseen turn of events for Trump, who praised Putin repeatedly during last year’s election campaign and said he would like to work more closely with Russia to defeat Islamic State. Just over a week ago, top administration officials were signaling that removing Assad is no longer a U.S. priority.

But one senior official said it was significant that Russia suspended, and did not cancel, cooperation with the United States after the air strike. Nor did Lavrov cancel Tillerson’s visit to Moscow, suggesting Russia may be willing to tolerate the single strike. As of this weekend, the talks were still on.

“They’re going to try to draw a line around this incident,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia during the George W. Bush administration. “They are still not giving up on working with the Trump administration.”

The Trump administration also wants to keep the focus in Syria on defeating Islamic State rather than opening a conflict with Russia or Syria’s government.

Another U.S. official said one hope is that Moscow will see Tillerson’s visit and a discussion about how to cooperate to stop Assad’s use of banned weapons as a tacit acknowledgement of Russia’s great power status, one of Putin’s main ambitions.

“The strikes aren’t necessarily a bad thing for Russia,” said Andrew Tabler, a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Russia’s had a very hard time getting President Assad to come to the negotiating table in any kind of meaningful way.”

Now, Tabler said, the Russians can point to more U.S. strikes as the price of further intransigence by Assad.

(Editing by John Walcott, Bill Trott and James Dalgleish)

U.S. bolsters protection of American forces in Syria as tensions climb

A U.S. fighter stands near a military vehicle, north of Raqqa city, Syria
A U.S. fighter stands near a military vehicle, north of Raqqa city, Syria

A U.S. fighter stands near a military vehicle, north of Raqqa city, Syria November 6, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has made slight adjustments to its military activities in Syria to strengthen protection of American forces following cruise missile strikes last week on a Syrian air base that heightened tensions, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.

The officials, citing operational security concerns, declined to specify what measures the United States has taken after the strikes, which Damascus, Tehran and Moscow condemned.

But one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stressed the strikes had not slowed the campaign against Islamic State militants.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the cruise missile strike on Syria’s Shayrat air base last week in retaliation for what Washington and its allies say was a poison gas attack by Syria’s government in which scores of civilians died.

The chemical weapons attack killed at least 70 people, many of them children, in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the assault.

Moscow says there is no proof that the Syrian military carried out the attack, and called the U.S. missile strike an act of aggression that violated international law.

A joint command center made up of the forces of Russia, Iran and militias supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday said the U.S. strike crossed “red lines” and it would respond to any new aggression and increase its support for its ally.

The United States has about 1,000 U.S. forces in Syria advising and training fighters to combat Islamic State and has regularly carried out air strikes against the militants. Those strikes have continued.

But as U.S. jets fly in Syrian airspace, one big question is whether the United States and Russia are keeping open a military communications channel to avoid an accidental clash.

The United States used the channel to advise Moscow ahead of its attack on the Syrian air base, to help ensure Russian personnel, who were also located on part of the base, would not be harmed or misinterpret the cruise missile strikes as an attack on them.

The U.S. military, which confirmed on Friday morning it believed the line of communications was still active, has since stopped commenting on whether it was operational.

Russian media has reported that Moscow has suspended the agreement that allows for those communications, a step that could heighten the risk of an accidental clash.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Warplanes drop incendiary bombs in Syria’s Idlib, Hama

People inspect the damage at a site hit by airstrikes in the rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian or Russian warplanes dropped incendiary bombs on areas of Idlib and Hama provinces just days after a deadly gas attack in the region, activists and a monitoring group reported on Monday.

Moscow and the Syrian army were not immediately available for comment.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian jets had used an incendiary substance called thermite in bombs they dropped over the towns of Saraqeb in Idlib and al-Latamenah in Hama, further south, on Saturday and Sunday.

A rescue worker in Saraqeb said warplanes had dropped phosphorus bombs there, but he had not heard of the use of thermite. He said use of phosphorus was not a new development.

“It’s normal, these are often used,” said Laith Abdullah of the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, a rescue group working in rebel-held areas.

Videos posted on social media purportedly from Saraqeb on Sunday showed flaming materials hitting the ground and spreading large fires.

The Observatory said thermite had first been used in the Syrian conflict in June 2016 by the Syrian government.

The bombings came after the United States launched cruise missiles at an air base in western Syria on Friday. The missile strike was a response to what Washington said was a gas attack by Syrian warplanes in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib that killed scores.

Syria denies using chemical substances and denies it carried out the attack.

The Observatory reported Syrian warplanes took off from the same air base less than a day after the U.S. attack and carried out air strikes on rebel-held areas.

(Reporting by John Davison, editing by Larry King)

U.S. to hold accountable those who commit crimes against ‘innocents’

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, (C) talks to reporters during a ceremony at the Sant'Anna di Stazzema memorial, dedicated to the victims of the massacre committed in the village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema by the Nazis in 1944 during World War II, Italy

y Crispian Balmer and Steve Scherer

LUCCA, Italy (Reuters) – The United States will hold responsible anyone who commits crimes against humanity, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Monday, days after the U.S. military unexpectedly attacked Syria.

Tillerson is in Italy for a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) major industrialized nations, with his counterparts from Europe and Japan eager for clarity from Washington on numerous diplomatic issues, especially Syria.

Before the April 7 missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, U.S. President Donald Trump had indicated he would be less interventionist than his predecessors and willing to overlook human rights abuses if it was in U.S. interests.

But Tillerson said the United States would not let such crimes go unchallenged. “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” he told reporters while commemorating a 1944 German Nazi massacre in Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

Trump ordered his military to strike Syria in retaliation for what the United States said was a chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces which killed scores of civilians, including many children.

European ministers are eager to hear whether Washington is now committed to overthrowing Assad, who is backed by Russia. They also want the United States to put pressure on Moscow to distance itself from Assad.

Tillerson, who travels to Russia after the two-day G7 gathering, said at the weekend that the defeat of Islamic State remained the U.S. priority, while the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said that “regime change” in Syria was also a priority for Trump.

The mixed messages have confused and frustrated European allies, who are eager for full U.S. support for a political solution based on a transfer of power in Damascus.

“The Americans say they agree, but there’s nothing to show for it behind (the scenes). They are absent from this and are navigating aimlessly in the dark,” said a senior European diplomat, who declined to be named.

Italy, Germany, France and Britain have invited foreign ministers from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Qatar to sit down with the G7 group on Tuesday morning to discuss Syria. All oppose Assad’s rule.

SENSITIVE ISSUES

The foreign ministers’ discussions in Tuscany will prepare the way for a leaders’ summit in Sicily at the end of May.

Efforts to reach an agreement on statements ahead of time – a normal part of pre-meeting G7 diplomacy – have moved very slowly, partly because of a difficult transition at the U.S. state department, where many key positions remain unfilled.

Some issues, such as trade and climate change, are likely to be ducked this week. “The more complicated subjects will be left to the leaders,” said an Italian diplomat, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

However, the foreign ministers will talk about growing tensions with North Korea, as the United States moves a navy strike group near the Korean peninsula amid concerns over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

They will also discuss Libya. Italy is hoping for vocal support for a United Nations-backed government in Tripoli which has struggled to establish its authority even in the city, let alone in the rest of the violence-plagued north African country.

The Trump administration has not yet defined a clear policy and Rome fears Washington may fall into step with Egypt and Russia, which support general Khalifa Haftar, a powerful figure in eastern Libya.

The struggle against terrorism, relations with Iran and instability in Ukraine will also come up for discussion, with talks due to kick off at 4.30 p.m. (10.30 a.m. ET) on Monday.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer and Steve Scherer; editing by Andrew Roche)

U.S. officials say Russian inaction enabled Syria chemical attack

A civil defence member breathes through an oxygen mask, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017.

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Trump administration officials on Sunday blamed Russian inaction for enabling a deadly poison gas attack against Syrian civilians last week as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson prepared to explain to Moscow a U.S. retaliatory missile strike.

Tillerson said Syria was able to execute the attack, which killed scores of people, because Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria.

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Syria’s “sponsors,” Russia and Iran, were enabling President Bashar al-Assad’s “campaign of mass murder against his own civilians.”

But Tillerson, who is expected to visit Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian officials, said on ABC’s ‘This Week’ program there was “no change” to the U.S. military posture toward Syria.

“I think the real failure here has been Russia’s failure to live up to its commitments under the chemical weapons agreements that were entered into in 2013,” Tillerson said.

“The failure related to the recent strike and the recent terrible chemical weapons attack in large measure is a failure on Russia’s part to achieve its commitment to the international community,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base after he blamed Assad for the chemical attack, which killed at least 70 people, many of them children, in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the attack.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” McMaster said the United States would take further action in Syria if necessary.

“We’re prepared to do more. In fact, we were prepared to do more two days ago,” McMaster said. “The president will make whatever decision he thinks is in the best interests of the American people.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani said in a phone call that aggressive U.S. actions against Syria were not permissible and violated international law, the Kremlin said.

McMaster said Russian leaders were supporting “a murderous regime” and their actions would dictate the future of U.S.-Russian relations.

“Do they want it to be a relationship of competition and potential conflict,” McMaster said. “Or do they want it to be a relationship in which we can find areas of cooperation that are in our mutual interest?”

Tillerson stopped short of accusing Russia of direct involvement in planning or carrying out the attack, saying he had not seen “any hard evidence” to suggest Moscow was an accomplice to Assad.

But he said the United States expected Russia to take a tougher stance by rethinking its alliance with Assad because “every time one of these horrific attacks occurs, it draws Russia closer into some level of responsibility.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and David Morgan; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Despite tough talk, Turkey caught between U.S. and Russia in Syria

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during a ceremony in Bursa, Turkey April 5, 2017. Yasin Bulbul/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Nick Tattersall, Humeyra Pamuk and Orhan Coskun

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish calls for tough action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after U.S. missile strikes on one of his airbases may overestimate Washington’s appetite for deeper involvement in Syria’s war and threaten Ankara’s fragile rapprochement with Russia.

Within hours of the U.S. cruise missile strikes, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan described the action as a “positive and concrete step against the war crimes of the Assad regime” and said the international community must do more.

The first direct U.S. assault on Syria’s government in six years of war appeared to vindicate Erdogan’s long-standing calls for Assad’s overthrow. It comes at an opportune moment for the Turkish leader, as he campaigns ahead of a closely fought referendum on constitutional changes to increase his powers.

But it highlights the rudderless nature of Turkish policy in Syria, as Ankara tries to forge stronger relations with both Moscow, Assad’s main backer, and Washington, a NATO ally hitherto reluctant to confront the Syrian leader head-on.

“I think Erdogan can spin this into a win, but it really isn’t one. The U.S. strike is one-off and limited,” said Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think-tank.

“Turkey can’t enact regime change with Russia in Syria, and neither can the United States. The (U.S.) strikes are tactics without strategy, leaving Turkey sandwiched between its only powerful ally, the United States, … and Russia.”

Turkish policy in Syria is in disarray. Assad remains in power despite Turkey’s long-standing determination to see him ousted, Kurdish militia fighters it sees as a hostile force are making gains with U.S. support, and Turkey has been increasingly targeted by Islamic State jihadists from across the border.

Turkey has more recently appeared to accept a transitional role for Assad as it adjusts to the realities on the ground and tries to rebuild ties with Moscow, shattered after it shot down a Russian warplane in 2015, sparking a diplomatic row which cost it billions of dollars in lost trade and tourism.

“There is a struggle for power between Russia and the United States over the future of Syria and Turkey is stumbling back and forth between the two,” said Metin Gurcan, a former Turkish military officer and an analyst at the Istanbul Policy Center.

“Sometimes we are extremely pro-Washington and sometimes pro-Moscow. That could lead to Turkey being perceived as an inconsistent, unpredictable and therefore unreliable actor.”

“DISCONNECT MORE OBVIOUS”

The U.S. missile strikes targeted an airbase from which President Donald Trump said a deadly chemical weapons attack on Idlib province, near the Turkish border, had been launched.

At a rally in the southern province of Hatay, which borders Idlib, Erdogan urged the international community to go further.

“Is it enough? I don’t find it enough. It is time to take serious steps for the protection of innocent Syrian people,” he said of the U.S. action.

His foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, was more explicit, saying Assad’s administration should immediately be removed.

“If he doesn’t want to go, if there is no transition government, and if he continues committing humanitarian crimes, the necessary steps to oust him should be taken,” Cavusoglu told reporters.

That stance sets Turkey at direct odds with Russia less than four months after the two powers brokered a ceasefire in Syria and peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana. Moscow, which has military advisers on the ground supporting Assad’s forces, denounced the U.S. action as illegal.

“Despite differing statements from Turkey and Russia on the U.S. strike, there’s still a communication channel between us and efforts to solve the Syria problem will continue,” said one senior Turkish official, vowing the Astana process would go on.

A second official said Turkey’s disconnect with Russia had “become much more obvious” after the missile strikes, but also said it did not want its partnership with Moscow to be damaged.

“NO GOOD OPTIONS”

Can Acun, a researcher at the SETA think-tank in Ankara, said Russia and Turkey had been moving apart over Syria for some time, pointing to Moscow’s readiness to work with Kurdish militia fighters in Syria and its failure to prevent ceasefire violations by Assad’s forces.

“The chemical attack in Idlib, and Russia’s silence and attempts to defend the Syrian regime, was the drop that filled the glass,” he said. “This will strain Turkey’s ties with Russia and Iran, but in the end, the determining factor will be how decisively the United States acts.”

Despite its quick endorsement of the U.S. action, Ankara has been deeply at odds with Washington in other areas of Syria policy. It has been incensed in particular by U.S. support for the Kurdish YPG militia, which it views as a terrorist group and an extension of Kurdish militants fighting on its own soil.

Just a month ago, Ankara was ruling out compromise with Washington over the involvement of YPG fighters in a planned assault on Raqqa, one of Islamic State’s two de facto capitals along with Mosul in Iraq.

The YPG is a key part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance which is receiving U.S. military support.

Erdogan has said Turkey, which hosts warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition in its southern Incirlik airbase, would be ready to support further U.S. action in Syria. But it remains to be seen what that role would be.

“I don’t expect there to be a role for Turkey, other than to continue to host coalition strike assets at Incirlik,” said Stein from the Atlantic Council, pointing out that those assets were primarily used to support the SDF not fight Assad.

“Turkey is where it was on April 6, 2017. A major player in northern Syria, albeit with no good options to escalate.”

(Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Giles Elgood)