Russia says US-led coalition airstrikes that mistakenly killed dozens of Syrian troops on Saturday — prompting a diplomatic firestorm — could jeopardize a fragile ceasefire.
The strikes near Deir Ezzor Airport — which the US says were intended to target ISIS but instead killed 62 Syrian soldiers, according to the Russian military — sparked a furious row between the US and Russian ambassadors to the United Nations outside an emergency Security Council meeting.
The US expressed “regret” over the airstrikes to Russia, which on Sunday said the attack could place the delicate Syrian truce, in place for less than a week, under threat.
“We consider what happened as a natural result of the persistent refusal of the United States from the establishment of close cooperation with Russia in the fight against ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other affiliated terrorist groups,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
US regret for ‘unintentional loss of life’
The strike occurred Saturday in a part of eastern Syria that is not covered by the ceasefire, which was brokered between Washington and Moscow and came into effect on Monday.
The US military acknowledged having carried out the strikes, but said it was targeting ISIS militants — and that if strikes hit Syrian troops, it was an accident.
The US “relayed our regret through the Russian Federation for the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces fighting ISIL,” a senior US official told CNN late Saturday.
“The U.S. will continue to pursue compliance with the Cessation of Hostilities as we continue military action against ISIL and al Qaeda.”
Russia and Syria said the strikes prove Washington and its allies are sympathetic to ISIS, which they say was able to briefly capture a Syrian position in the wake of the coalition attack.
The Russian military says 62 Syrian soldiers were killed in the US-led coalition strike, according to state media, while the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at 83, with at least 120 soldiers wounded.
US, Russia war of words
Russia’s permanent UN representative, Vitaly Churkin, questioned the timing of the strikes, two days before Russian-American coordination in the fight against terror groups in Syria was to begin.
“I have never seen such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness,” he said, after abruptly leaving an UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria.
Churkin was upset with US ambassador Samantha Power, who lambasted Russia’s support of the Syrian regime to the media outside the meeting while he was speaking.
Power angrily denounced the Russian call for the UN meeting as a stunt.
Power said “even by Russia’s standards, tonight’s stunt — a stunt replete with moralism and grandstanding — is uniquely cynical and hypocritical.”
If US-led coalition airstrikes did hit Syrian forces Saturday, it was unintentional and Washington regrets any loss of life, she said before proceeding to list atrocities she said the Syrian regime has perpetuated during the five-year civil war.
“Since 2011, the Assad regime has been intentionally striking civilian targets with horrifying, predictable regularity. They have besieged civilian areas, prevented life-saving aid from reaching people who are starving to death, and dying of illnesses that could be treated with basic medicine.”
In response to her remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote that in order for Power “to learn the meaning of the word ‘shame’,” she should visit Syria and “meet people who live there, despite the fact that for almost six years already their country undergoes a bloody experiment, with the active involvement of Washington.”
US: Coalition conferred with Russia
A statement from US Central Command said the coalition conferred with the Russian military before the strike.
“The coalition airstrike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military,” US Central Command said.
A US official told CNN they broadly described the geographic area to the Russians — as is customary — before the strike but did not give a precise location. The coalition thought it was going after an ISIS tank position.
Russia blames the United States
Syrian troops have been battling ISIS in Deir Ezzor for years, and the Islamist militants control most of the city.
“Syria is a complex situation with various military forces and militias in close proximity, but coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit,” CENTCOM said.
Russia blamed the United States for failing to coordinate with them on the airstrikes, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman told Sputnik.
“If this airstrike was carried out due to an error in the coordinates of the target, it is a direct consequence of (the) US side’s unwillingness to coordinate its actions against terrorist groups with Russia,” Sputnik quoted the spokesman as saying.
ISIS militants launched an attack on the Syrian position after the airstrikes, Sputnik reported, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Syrian state-run news agency SANA said the military was able to quickly regain control of the area from ISIS.
Delicate ceasefire
The Syrian military said it viewed the strike as evidence the United States and the coalition support ISIS. It called the incident a serious and blatant aggression, SANA reported. Russia’s Foreign Ministry had similar words, according to spokeswoman Zakharova.
The latest ceasefire has offered some respite from violence in the civil war, which has killed an estimated 430,000 people since 2011 and touched off an international refugee crisis. But there have been numerous reports of violations, and both the Russians and Americans have said the other party is not fulfilling its obligations.
The main focus of the ceasefire was to allow humanitarian aid to reach the Syrian people. But nearly a week after the ceasefire began, desperate populations in besieged areas are yet to receive aid, which has been held up on the Turkish border as humanitarian agencies await guarantees of safety from the warring parties.
Once the humanitarian relief was in, the Russians and Americans were meant to agree on targeting jihadist factions: Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham, the former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and ISIS. To do that, they are supposed to set up a Joint Implementation Center.
CNN military analyst Lt. Col. Rick Francona said it is not clear now what will happen.
“This might put in danger this Joint Implementation Center that the US and the Russians are supposed to set up in the next few days to coordinate just these kinds of strikes against ISIS and to prevent just what happened,” he said Saturday.