Is Syria a ‘Proxy War’ Between United States, Russian Federation?

The Iranian-backed group Hezbollah has also sent a fresh wave of fighters to Syria, he told The Associated Press. “I can tell you that as for China’s warships, for example the Liaoning, whether it has gone to join, for this issue, as far as I know, there is no such plan”. Russian Federation last month began air strikes on targets in Syria in a dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in the civil war.

Russian Federation began its air campaign in Syria on September 30, helping support Assad and his embattled troops at a critical point in the fighting. The Liaoning is generally considered by military experts to be a training carrier, while China builds its own carriers and works out how to operate them. The Syrian government and Iran had been asking Russian Federation to intervene for a year, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss military affairs.

Despite the planned talks, Moscow said Wednesday that Washington had declined to host a high-ranking Russian delegation or to send a team to hold separate broader discussions on Syria. On the one hand, the chief American goal in Syria is to destroy the Islamic State, an extremist army with billions of dollars at its disposal. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported Wednesday that Iranian troops were arriving and being transported to a military base in the coastal town of Latakia, in the town of Jableh outside the provincial capital. “There is a large mobilization of the Syrian Army… elite Hezbollah fighters, and thousands of Iranians who arrived in stages in recent days”. “Sending more troops from Hezbollah and Iran only increases the shelf life of the Syrian regime, which is destined to end”, Maj.

The town marks the western edge of the defensive line along which the rebels have stationed a dozen anti-tank missile launch platforms, said Ahmed al-Seoud, head of the 13th Division, a foreign-backed faction fighting under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army.

“This is a civil war – pro-Assad or anti-Assad; there’s not much room for an anti-ISIS focus”, Skinner added, using an alternate acronym for IS.

He said their presence on the ground is not new, but was kept quiet. He also disparaged Saudi Arabia and its influential clerics for failing to rally behind the rebels that the monarchy supports in Syria like they did decades ago in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama has not spoken about the Central Intelligence Agency program publicly, but he has said that Russian Federation risks slipping into a quagmire in Syria and is operating from a position of weakness.