After a terrorist attack on a charter flight carrying Russian tourists, one would think that the French wouldn’t need to make this demand. The Russian air force has struck targets in and around Raqqa, the center of power for ISIS, as have the French. However, Vladimir Putin’s military continues to also strike at forces opposed to Bashar al-Assad, complicating the coordination of the anti-ISIS coalition, and France has had enough:
Russian air strikes in Syria must clearly target only Islamic State, France’s foreign ministry said on Monday in response to questions over recent raids by Moscow on opposition groups in the north of the country.
After traveling to the Russian capital on Thursday, French President Francois Hollande said he had agreed with his counterpart Vladimir Putin that these attacks would only hit Islamic State and similar jihadi groups in Syria. …
Asked about strikes since Friday on ethnic Turkmen areas near the Syrian-Turkish border, foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said: “There can be no possible ambiguity on the objectives being pursued, which must only target the destruction of Daesh (Islamic State).”
So far, the Russians aren’t demonstrating much agreement on that point. A Reuters report from western Syria shows the aftermath of an alleged Russian air raid on Ariha, a small town far from Raqqa:
Ariha sits just outside of the mountain range on Syria’s west. Idlib is northeast of Ariha, and was the target of Bashar al-Assad’s forces last month in their offensive to wrest control away from the non-ISIS native insurgency, with Russian air cover. Aleppo, where ISIS and the native insurgencies have fought for control with Assad’s forces, is almost 45 miles away — and Raqqa is 165 miles from Ariha. It is, however, less than thirty miles as the crow flies to the Turkish border, which might explain why Russian fighters felt it necessary to cross into Turkish airspace.
France wants more of a focus on ISIS in Syria for understandable reasons after the massacre in Paris. They also believe that one of the terrorists has safely returned to ISIS-held territory:
French intelligence services believe Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has escaped to Syria, according to a source close to the investigation and a counterterrorism source.
Investigators have been looking for Abdeslam since shortly after the November 13 attacks, which killed 130 people.
The possibility that Abdeslam had already slipped through authorities’ net was raised last week when a lawyer said his client, Ali Oulkadi, picked up Abdeslam and a friend at a subway stop in suburban Brussels the day after the attacks.
“He did not know it was Salah and did not recognize him immediately when he arrived because he was wearing a cap,” lawyer Olivier Martins said. “In the car, Salah told him that his brother, Brahim, had killed people in Paris and had blown himself up. For my client, a childhood friend of the two brothers, it was a shock, He could not understand it and could not think clearly.”
They certainly would love to get their hands on Abdesalam, but probably wouldn’t mind a missile or bomb landing on him instead. Perhaps the Russians can focus on the issue at hand more than bombing the non-ISIS Syrians in the west.
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