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WAR REPORT
US-led coalition says Syria strike killed 'top IS cleric'l
 by Staff Writers
 Beirut (AFP) June 20, 2017


The Syria hotline for US and Russian militaries
Washington (AFP) June 20, 2017 - Russia has said it is suspending a special hotline to communicate with the US-led coalition about operations in Syria, raising the risk of a military mishap.

Here is a quick look at the so-called "deconfliction line" and why it has become so important in Syria.

- What is it? -

The line was established in October 2015 after Russia entered Syria's civil war to prop up President Bashar al-Assad.

Both sides agreed to open a regular communications channel after several instances in which Russian and US planes or drones had come close to each other, raising the nightmare prospect of a mid-air collision or some other dangerous encounter.

The link is just a regular phone line staffed on the US side by a Russian-speaking officer in an operations center at a base in Qatar, and has been used almost daily since its inception.

- What has happened? -

On Sunday, a US jet shot down a regime warplane in northern Syria as it "dropped bombs" on US-backed local forces.

Russia condemned the action and said it would sever the deconfliction line.

Moscow made a similar threat in April after the United States launched a cruise missile attack on a regime air base in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons strike on civilians.

- The implications -

It later emerged that Russia and the United States continued to use the hotline even after Moscow said it was hanging up.

It is possible a similar pattern is emerging in this instance.

As on the previous occasion, the Pentagon will not answer whether it is still using the hotline, deferring questions to the Russians.

"We believe that having a channel where we can de-escalate and understand each other's intentions serves a very good purpose and we are hopeful that we can continue to use it," Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said Tuesday.

- Does it work? -

Generally, yes. But the system is not perfect, especially when it comes to trying to pass messages to the Syrian regime.

Sunday's downing of a regime plane and an incident this month when an American jet shot down a pro-regime drone illustrate the line's limitations.

The Russians "don't have operational control over the Syrian forces or the pro-regime militias," Davis noted.

The US-led coalition said Tuesday it had killed the Islamic State group's self-proclaimed top cleric in an air strike in May on a Syrian town near the Iraqi border.

"Coalition forces killed Turki Binali, the self-proclaimed 'Grand Mufti' or chief cleric of ISIS in an air strike May 31 in Mayadeen, Syria," the coalition said in a statement, using an acronym for the jihadist group.

Rumours of Binali's death had circulated after the strike, but there was no official confirmation until the statement.

It described Binali as "a close confidant" of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and said he "had a central role in recruiting foreign terrorist fighters and provoking terrorist attacks around the world."

A 2016 US Treasury Department counter-terrorism designation identified Binali as a citizen of Bahrain born in the country in 1984.

He was also listed under UN sanctions, which described him as having been chosen as IS's "chief religious advisor" in 2014.

He served as head of IS's religious compliance police, a recruiter of foreign fighters and on a team of advisors to Baghdadi, according to the UN listing.

He was killed in a strike that came days after another US-led coalition air raid on Mayadeen that reportedly killed the founder of IS's notorious Amaq propaganda agency.

The May 29 strike killed Rayan Mashaal, also known as Baraa Kadek, according to local Syrian activists, though the coalition has not yet confirmed that.

The IS deaths come as the group is under major pressure in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Its fighters are surrounded in the Old City of Iraq's Mosul, and under attack in their Syrian stronghold of Raqa from a US-backed alliance that has also seized four neighbourhoods of the city.

Russia said on Friday it was seeking to verify whether Baghdadi was killed when its warplanes hit the group's leaders in a night raid in Syria last month.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests before spiralling into a war that has drawn in jihadists and foreign powers.

WAR REPORT
Russia to track coalition planes in Syria, halts US hotline
 Moscow (AFP) June 19, 2017
 Russia's defence ministry on Monday condemned the US downing of a Syrian plane and said it would now track all coalition flights west of the Euphrates river, while suspending its use of a military hotline for avoiding incidents in Syrian airspace. Moscow accused the US of failing to use the established communication hotline to warn Russia about the downing of the plane on Sunday. "The co ... read more
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