Obama and al-Assad May Meet in Iraq

As the US airstrikes targeted ISIS in Iraq, and the al-Assad regime has turned on ISIS, which it finally sees as its enemy, pounding its strongholds with airstrikes, a new report by a respected international research group, Small Arms Survey, a Switzerland-based research organization that analyzes the global flow of weapons, says armed groups in Syria have an estimated several hundred portable anti-aircraft missiles that could easily be smuggled out of Syria and diverted to extremists for use in destroying low-flying commercial planes. The report came just hours after the FAA issued a notice Monday to US airlines banning all flights in Syrian airspace. The FAA, which had previously warned against flying over Syrian airspace but had not banned it, said armed extremists in Syria are "known to be equipped with a variety of anti-aircraft weapons which have the capability to threaten civilian aircraft," and that the presence of anti-aircraft weapons creates a "continuing significant potential threat to civil aviation operating in Syrian airspace." The Small Arms Survey report focuses on launchers and missiles known as "man-portable air defense systems," or MANPADS, which are dangerous to planes flying at lower altitudes or taking off or landing. The new report estimated that several hundred anti-aircraft missile systems, mostly Chinese and Russian, are already in rebel hands. According to the report, the weapons have been seized by Syrian opposition militias from government forces -- US officials have estimated the Syrian government amassed as many as 20,000 MANPADS before the civil war began in 2011 -- and smuggled in from nations sympathetic to the insurgents. The emergence in the Middle East of groups affiliated with al-Qaida and other extremists heightens the danger that anti-aircraft weapons could spread to trouble spots outside Syria. MANPADS in the hands of jihadist extremist groups is a potentially catastrophic threat to commercial aviation," wrote Matthew Schroeder, the report's author. The analysis is based on government and media reports and video footage of anti-aircraft weapons posted online from inside Syria. ~~~~~ ISIS has overrun much of northern Syria, and it recently posted an online propaganda video showing one fighter appearing to fire an older-model, Russian-made SA-7 missile system. Rebels, presumably ISIS-backed, have in the past shot down Syrian military aircraft. Russia earlier halted all its civilian flights to Syria in April after Moscow officials said a Russian charter plane flying from Egypt into Syrian air space was targeted by two surface-to-air missiles but escaped damage. The Flight MH17 shootdown was a clear signal that civilian aircraft can be exposed to anti-aircraft missiles at both high and low altitudes, Schroeder said. The Malaysian jet was struck at 33,000 feet, beyond the range of MANPADS. American officials said Flight MH17 was struck by a long-range surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Russia has denied any role in the attack. Unlike the larger vehicle-mounted systems used in Ukraine, compact MANPADS and tube launchers are difficult to track, once beyond government control, and easy to dismantle and hide. Eight different MANPADS models have turned up in Syria. At least two varieties, the Chinese-made FN-6 and the Russian SA-24 Grinch, are newer and more sophisticated models with longer ranges - up to 20,000 feet altitude - are harder to repel by aircraft electronic jamming systems. A third new model spotted inside Syria has yet to be identified, Schroeder said. The report names Sudan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as possible sources of MANPADS systems smuggled to insurgents inside Syria but says there still is no certainty about their origins. Rebel groups have also claimed seizing anti-aircraft launchers and missiles from Syrian forces as they took al-Assad military bases in northern Syria. ~~~~~ MANPADS may pose a real threat to commercial aircraft, but they must also be a worry for lower-altitude US and Iraqi military aircaft, especially helicopters, flying over ISIS targets or performing humanitarian missions. Airstrikes against ISIS targets are succeedlng, so we must assume that ISIS is planning a response to stop them. Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said Monday that during the Kurdish peshmerga take-back of the Mosul dam : "The US military used fighters, bomber attack and unmanned aircraft to conduct 35 strikes. We destroyed over 90 targets including a range of vehicles, equipment and fighting positions." Sunday’s strikes were the first time that bombers as well as fighter jets and drones were involved in the current US air campaign. Now that the dam is cleared of ISIS militants, Iraqi forces are moving to expand their area of control, according to the Pentagon. President Obama said yesterday : "This operation demonstrates that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are capable of working together and taking the fight to ISIS. If they continue to do so, they will have the strong support of the United States of America." But for ridding Iraq of ISIS, US airstrikes may not be enough, said retired Colonel Cedric Leighton, a former Air Force intelligence officer. "At the core of the mission is to get rid of ISIS," he said, adding, "The US cannot have a Middle East in which ISIS exists." ~~~~~ It is increasingly clear that if there is an Obama strategy in Iraq - not at all defined or confirmed by the President, and far more likely to be a US military strategy based on Obama's airstrike authorization - it is the use of airstrikes to immobilize ISIS units, destroy their equipment, and soften them up for Kurdish ground attack. This is all Obama has authozized, and the latest Mosul effort shows its effectiveness when combined with professional ground forces. ~~~~~ President Obama wrote to Congress this weekend, outlining the rationale and justification for the strikes, saying the integrity of the Mosul dam was crucial to the security of the US embassy in Baghdad. The US has consistently cited the security of US personnel in Baghdad and Irbil to explain its military operation to support the Kurds. In his letter to Congress, Obama said the strikes had been authorised in order to “recapture the Mosul dam,” adding : “These military operations will be limited in their scope and duration as necessary to support the Iraqi forces in their efforts to retake and establish control of this critical infrastructure site, as part of their ongoing campaign against the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS]. The failure of the Mosul dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians, endanger US personnel and facilities, including the US Embassy in Baghdad, and prevent the Iraqi government from providing critical services to the Iraqi populace.” ~~~~~ Dear readers, with airstrikes a key component of the war in Iraq, MANPADS and other ground-to-air anti-aircraft weaponry are crucial. When ISIS supplies them to its militants in Iraq, that war will even more resemble the war in Syria -- two partisan governments whose military is/was used to subdue sectarian opponents, an opposition to those governments organizing, but co-opted by jihadists who use the sectarian split to capture large swaths of each country while hiding behind the disenfranchized until they no longer need them. And US President Obama slow to comprehend, form a strategy or act in either Syria or Iraq. The consequence is that Syria's al-Assad and Barack Obama now have a common enemy - ISIS. What camp does this put Obama in? - the camp of ISIS jihadists, al-Assad, Iran, Russia and China? Not a comfortable place for a US President to be. And while Iraq airstrikes may be an initial success, President Obama will have much harder decision points when those MANPADS kick in and al-Assad fighter jets cross the Syria-Iraq border looking for ISIS -- especially if Saudi Arabia decides definitively that its real interests lie not in being the Godfather of Islam but with Egypt and the Emirates, and Israel, and so calls on Mr. Obama to help stop Iran and Syria by taking them on in Iraq.