The latest events in the Syrian conflict , including the downing of a Russian Il-20M maritime reconnaissance plane in the course of Israeli strikes against targets in the Arab nation on Monday, are threatening to spark a regional war despite the agreement between Moscow and Turkey to establish a buffer zone in Idlib province , the remaining bastion of the Western-backed Islamist rebels.
Three years after its successful intervention in Syria to save the regime of President Bashar al-Assad , also supported by Iran and the Lebanese Shiite militia of Hezbollah , Russia undertook its biggest military exercises in the Syrian Mediterranean coast on September, preparing the offensive to liberate Idlib , occupied by some 40,000-70,000 fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham , a jihadist alliance linked to Al Qaeda .
However, the strong reaction of the United States and its European allies , warning of “ dire consequences ” if the offensive is launched, coupled with the propaganda about an imminent Syrian “chemical attack ” on its own population, disrupted the Kremlin plans and led to the negotiations in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan .
Idlib
, located in the northern border with Turkey , is the last major stronghold of the rebel groups which have been trying to overthrow al-Assad since 2011 , in a war that has killed more than 350,000 people .
The province and adjoining areas of Hama and Aleppo are home to an estimated 2.9 million people, half of them refugees .
The province is also strategically crucial, due to the highways running south from Aleppo to Hama and the capital, Damascus , and west to the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia , near the Russian naval base in Tartus.
If Idlib is taken by the government , it would leave the rebels with a few pockets of territory scattered across the country and effectively signal their final defeat .
After five hours of extensive talks, Putin and Erdogan announced their agreement to create a demilitarized buffer zone of 15-20 km , which should come into force by October 15 with “ full withdrawal of all radical fighters ” from Idlib, including the al-Nusra Front , a faction allied to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda , as well as the main component of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham .
Heavy weapons
Putin added that heavy weapons would be withdrawn from all opposition forces by October 10 and by year-end, transportation routes linking Latakia with Aleppo and Hama must also be restored.
For his part, Erdogan said both his country and Russia would carry out coordinated patrols in the demilitarized zone , and reiterated that the biggest threat to Turkey was the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units , who control swaths of territory in northeast Syria.
According to analysts from Qatar , one of the Persian Gulf states which financed the militants with Saudi Arabia , the deal constitutes a “significant diplomatic success ” for Erdogan, who managed to maintain Turkey’s influence with the opposition and prevented another massive wave of refugees heading towards his country.
While the rebels hailed the Sochi agreement as a victory, independent journalists and analysts such as Elijah J. Magnier considered that this time Erdogan will have to honor its commitment to totally end the presence of jihadists, as it was decided since the September 15, 2017 , Astana Turkish-Russian-Iranian deal .
Given what is at stake, nevertheless, we cannot take for granted that Turkey’s government will put the militants under its firm control .
After all, the Idlib crisis is part of a greater struggle in which the U.S. , Israel , and Saudi goal is the destruction of the Assad regime as a necessary precondition to attack Iran and the Hezbollah , the remaining members of the so-called “ Axis of Resistance .”
At the risk of looking weak and intimidated by the allied show of force in response to its military maneuvers, Putin’s restraint has been key to avoid a wider war either during the Turkish shootdown of a Russian Sukhoi bomber near the Syrian border in 2015 or after the killing of some 200 Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group by U.S. commandos in Deir el-Zour province earlier this year.
Coincidence or not, this is the context in which the Ilyushin Il-20M reconnaissance plane with 15 servicemen on board was downed last Monday, just hours after the press conference held by Putin and Erdogan in Sochi.
The Defense Ministry in Moscow explained that Israeli F-16 fighters attacking targets in Latakia approached the Russian plane and used its much bigger radar reflection as cover to avoid Syrian anti-aircraft fire; then the Ilyushin was hit by an S-200 missile off the coast.
On Tuesday, Russian ships searched the area for survivors. Some wreckage of the plane was found at sea 27 km west of the village of Banias .
The Defense Ministry accused Israel of reporting its operation via a hotline just one minute beforehand, adding that it was not enough time to get the Il-20M to safety, yet Putin attributed the incident to a “ chain of tragic events ” and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed “ regret ” for the death of the crew in a telephone conversation.
Netanyahu
blamed the Syrian air defense and reiterated that his nation is “ determined to halt Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria and the attempts to transfer to Hezbollah lethal weaponry to be used against Israel .”
In the last days, Israel has intensified its air attacks against military and industrial targets in Syria , including an Iranian freight plane at Damascus airport.
The aircraft allegedly carried an Iranian copy of the Russian S-300 long-range air defense system for the Syrian army.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed that more than 100 Iranian soldiers were killed in the strikes over the past month.
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