Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Moscow on an unannounced visit Tuesday

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Visits Moscow

Putin says Syrian government has ‘achieved significantly positive results’ against opposition forces

By Nathan Hodge in Moscow and Dahlia Kholaif in Cairo 

Updated Oct. 21, 2015 4:44 a.m. ET 

 

MOSCOW—Syrian President  Bashar al-Assad arrived in Moscow on an unannounced visit Tuesday, the Russian government said Wednesday, in the leader’s first known trip outside his country since the start of conflict there in March 2011.

In a statement issued by the Kremlin, Russian President said the Syrian government had “achieved significantly positive results” in its fight against an array of opposition forces.

Russia began an aerial-bombardment campaign in support of Mr. Assad’s forces in late September.  Mr. Putin said Russia was willing “not only to take the path of military action in the fight against terrorism, but to take the path of a political solution” to end the conflict in Syria.

“It worries us as well—Russia, I mean—that unfortunately a minimum of around 4,000 people from the republics of the former Soviet Union have taken up arms against the government forces and are fighting on the territory of Syria,” Mr. Putin added.

According to the Kremlin statement, Mr. Assad expressed gratitude for Russia’s support.

“Everyone understands that any military action suggests further political steps,” the Syrian president said. “And of course, the common goal for us all should be what the Syrian people want to see for the future of their country.”

The official Syrian Arab News Agency confirmed Wednesday that Mr. Assad met with Mr. Putin at the Russian leader’s invitation, discussing future bilateral military plans and expressing the Syrian people’s gratitude for Russian support. 

It said the two leaders had discussed the continuation of military operations against terrorist groups in Syria, using the Syrian government’s term for its opponents, and further joint operations between the two allies.

Mr. Assad also told his Russian counterpart that terrorism is impeding the path to a political solution to the now four-year-old conflict, SANA reported, and said that any military operation by the two countries must be followed by political steps.

The Russian president reiterated his country’s commitment to support Mr. Assad through military and political channels, SANA said, and said he would call on other world powers to look into a potential diplomatic solution to the conflict. 

Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/syrian-president-bashar-al-assad-visits-moscow-1445414559

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Syrian Regime, Backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, Expands Ground Offensive to Aleppo

Fighting began on southern outskirts of city

By RAJA ABDULRAHIM

Oct. 18, 2015 6:21 p.m. ET

Syrian pro-regime forces backed by Russian airstrikes have expanded their ground offensive to the strategic city of Aleppo, one of the clearest signs yet of how Russia’s recent military intervention has emboldened President Bashar al-Assad and his loyalists.

In the bitterly fought multi-sided war, Aleppo is among the most coveted prizes. Losing partial control of the city, which was once Syria’s largest and its commercial capital, was an embarrassment to the regime. But with the backing of Russian warplanes, Iranian forces and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Mr. Assad’s forces could now be in position to regain large parts of the city and the surrounding countryside.

“I suspect Assad always wanted to take back Aleppo because it is such an important city and retaking it has such strategic and symbolic importance,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based military and security think tank. “And it would deny the rebels a foothold in any major city.”

The battle for Aleppo, launched on Friday, is an extension of two weeks of other ground offensives in the provinces of Hama, Latakia and Homs aided by Iranian forces and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Mr. Assad is attempting to retake territory once considered out of his control, showing a new confidence with his growing international support.

Since Friday, the regime has netted a number of villages on the southern outskirts of the city and thousands of civilians are fleeing fighting in the area. on Sunday, the regime captured one additional village and U.S.-backed rebels destroyed two regime tanks using American-supplied weapons as they tried to stem the regime’s progress.

The regime appears to be advancing westward toward the strategic highway linking Aleppo with the capital Damascus, rebels said.

In a rare move, the offensive is being led by regime-allied Iranian fighters, according to Ahmad al-Ahmad, a spokesman for the moderate Islamist rebel group Faylaq al-Sham, which is involved in the battles.

Aleppo is about 30 miles south of the Turkish border and has been the site of battles between the rebels and regime since 2012. The countryside north of the city was one of the first areas where rebels gained a territorial foothold in the war, giving them access to border crossing with Turkey and a key road from the border that served as an important supply line.

The city of Aleppo is now divided in two, with an array of rebel factions controlling the eastern half and the regime holding the western half.

In July, Mr. Assad conceded that his forces were stretched too thin and could no longer defend the entire country, adding that priorities needed to be set. The acknowledgment came after years of desertions and draft dodgers and more than half the country slipping out of his control.

But Moscow’s intervention has allowed Mr. Assad to modify his earlier objective. Russian airstrikes are supporting his efforts to hold on to the stronghold around Damascus and to preserve a strategic corridor along the Lebanese border.

They are also aiding regime attempts to regain full control over the central provinces of Homs and Hama and the western region on the Mediterranean coast.

But Aleppo “is outside of the bounds one would think would be the point of restabilization for the regime,” said Christopher Kozak, a research analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank.

Russian strikes have also targeted the southern provinces of Daraa and Quneitra and the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, in what appears to be an attempt to regain large parts of the country, rebels said.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said Sunday that Russian air forces carried out 39 combat flights and hit 51 targets in the provinces of Hama, Latakia Damascus and Aleppo in the past 24 hours.

The regime’s ground offensives over the past two weeks have been led by fighters and military advisers from Iran and forces from Hezbollah, supplemented by Syrian security forces. While those offensives have resulted in a number of seized villages, they haven’t secured any big territorial gains for the regime.

The pattern of small-scale ground offensives since Russia began bombing targets in Syria on Sept. 30 is beyond the scope of normal operations for the Syrian army, but it appears to follow Soviet battlefield strategy of probing front-line weaknesses, according to Mr. Kozak.

Infighting has dogged Aleppo’s rebels—even more than opposition fighters elsewhere in Syria. Potential coalitions have crumbled over differing ideologies and command structures. Both Islamic State militants and the regime have now exploited that discord.

So far the battles in Aleppo are concentrated in the southern countryside on multiple fronts pushing toward the crucial highway that links the city with the coastal province of Latakia and the central provinces such as Hama, rebels said.

One of the goals of the offensive could be to prevent rebel reinforcements from Aleppo being sent to help fighters along other fronts. Rebels also report an amassing of pro-regime forces elsewhere in Aleppo province that could be aimed at cutting off the rebel supply route from Turkey.

Such moves could severely weaken the array of rebel forces in Aleppo, which include Islamist groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front as well as U.S.-backed rebels.

Since the emergence of Islamic State in 2013, rebels have seen their territory gradually shrink as they have faced threats from both the extremists and Syrian regime.

Moscow, for its part, has said it is targeting Islamic State even though the majority of its airstrikes have been on mainstream rebels, including some Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions trained and equipped by the U.S.

“The FSA has done relatively well in fending off the first wave,” said Mr. Hokayem. “But looking at the military capabilities, my sense is the Assad, Iran, Russia coalition will be able to achieve significant territorial gains.”

—Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow contributed to this article.

Write to Raja Abdulrahim at raja.abdulrahim@wsj.com

http://www.wsj.com/articles/syrian-regime-backed-by-russia-iran-and-hezbollah-expands-ground-offensive-to-aleppo-1445206886