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New Report on Syrian Missiles Shows Extent of Death and Damage

The Syrian government fired at least four ballistic missiles last week that hit civilian neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, killing more than 141 people, including 71 children, according to a Human Rights Watch report released on Tuesday.

Syrian antigovernment activists had reported the missile strikes last week, corroborated by video of the aftermath posted on the Internet, but the Human Rights Watch report contained new details about the number of missile strikes and the scope of destruction, with a death toll that was far higher than previously thought. 

“The extent of the damage from a single strike, the lack of aircraft in the area at the time, and reports of ballistic missiles being launched from a military base near Damascus overwhelmingly suggest that government forces struck these areas with ballistic missiles,” the report said. 

The assessment came as both sides’ international backers called with increasing urgency for a political solution but remained unable to get the antagonists to talk. That impasse has been the main focus of the first foreign trip by John Kerry, the new American secretary of state, who met with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, on Tuesday to try to push the Syrian combatants into talks. 

Fighting intensified in Aleppo, including around the 12th-century Umayyad Mosque, one of the architectural centerpieces of Aleppo’s Old City, and around a long-contested police academy, according to rebels and the government. 

The ballistic missile strikes felled entire buildings in destruction that stands out even after months of fighting, according to Human Rights Watch. Its researchers visited all four sites, in residential areas, and found no evidence of military targets nearby, making the attacks a violation of international law, the organization said. 

A resident of Ard al-Hamra, one of the neighborhoods hit, said he had just left his brother’s house after evening tea on Friday when “the sky was lit up by a tremendous flash and all air was sucked away.” 

He ran back to find that “my brother’s house was gone,” he told Human Rights Watch. “We managed to find my five young nieces and nephews, aged between 3 and 17 years old. They were all dead under the rubble. We still have not found my brother. When will somebody stop this madness?” 

As the death toll from the Syrian conflict exceeds 70,000, according to United Nations estimates, and the destruction of major cities continues unabated, fears are mounting that the conflict will spread throughout the region. 

Jeffrey D. Feltman, the United Nations’ top political official, told the Security Council during a Middle East briefing, “The destructive military spiral churns more forcefully each day and threatens to pull its neighbors, most notably and worrisomely Lebanon, into its vortex.” 

Lebanon, torn apart by political disagreements over Syria and longstanding sectarian divides exacerbated by the increasingly sectarian killing in Syria, last week became the country hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees, even though it is Syria’s smallest and most politically vulnerable neighbor. 

“Even tentative steps to dialogue are struggling to take root,” Mr. Feltman said, referring to offers of negotiations issued — with caveats and conditions — by both the Syrian opposition and government in recent days. “Regrettably, the warring parties remain locked in military logic which is bound to bring more death and destruction.” 

Before a meeting in Rome on Thursday of the opposition’s international backers, the main opposition group remains under pressure to further unify and organize itself — in part to make sure there is someone for the government to meet with should talks become possible. 

The opposition group, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, has said that on Saturday it will select a prime minister to run an interim government to be established in rebel-held areas of northern Syria. But the group has set and missed such deadlines in the past, and members say there is no consensus yet on who should fill the post. 

Even if a prime minister is appointed and empowered to negotiate with the Syrian government, it is unclear if talks will take place. The government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, has long insisted that Mr. Assad be part of the process, while the opposition coalition, backed by the United States, declares that he cannot be. 

Seeking to resolve that impasse, Mr. Kerry had his first meeting as secretary of state with Mr. Lavrov of Russia on Tuesday in Berlin. 

The meeting covered the range of American-Russian issues, from economic relations to adoption of Russian orphans. But more than half of the session was devoted to the situation in Syria. 

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Kerry’s predecessor as secretary of state, believed she had worked out an agreement with the Russians in Geneva in June that would have established the framework for negotiations on a political transition to a post-Assad government. But the Russians interpreted the agreement differently, saying that the understanding that Mr. Assad should leave power could not be a precondition for the talks. 

Mr. Kerry, who has said he has new ideas on how to advance diplomacy on Syria, has been looking for a way to secure Russian backing for a transition. 

“It was a really serious and hard-working session,” said Victoria Nuland, the State Department’s spokeswoman. Much of the discussion, she said, “focused on Syria and how we can work together to implement the Geneva agreement.” 

Mr. Lavrov told Russian news agencies after the meeting that Russia would try to establish the conditions for initiating “a dialogue between the government and the opposition.”

Cutting The Chinese Connection

Russia insists it will never abandon the Assad dictatorship in Syria. But Arab diplomats are pointing out that the Assads are doomed and Russian support simply prolongs the fighting. Arabs will hold Russia responsible for the additional deaths and that means Russia will be a pariah in the Arab world for a long time. For the moment, Russia is officially ignoring that prospect, but the Arabs are most definitely not.

Russia has demanded that China do more to halt drug smuggling into Russia. China has become a major source for amphetamines and “designer drugs” (new formulations that have unpredictable results but are popular with many younger Russians.) While not as big a problem as the flow of Afghan heroin, the Chinese Connection is growing.

Arms sales to India remain in jeopardy. India recently announced it would cut its order for the new T-50 Russian fighter from 200 to 144 aircraft. The T-50 is the Russian answer to the U.S. F-22/F-35 and delivery is supposed to be by 2017. India does not expect to see T-50 until 2020 and is not as enthusiastic about this project as it once was. India is supplying much of the development money for this aircraft. On the plus side India has ordered 200 more BrahMos cruise missiles and 10,000 Invar anti-tank missiles (that are launched from the 125mm gun of the T-90 tank). This deal involves India manufacturing an additional 15,000 Invars.

The government is now seeking to prosecute (for terrorism) leaders of pro-reform demonstrations. Many Russians oppose the decade old trend that is turning Russia back into a police state but the majority of Russians approve of the current government.

Russia does not want to renew the 1992 Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program. This American financed program upgraded security for Russia’s nuclear arsenal and paid for the prompt return of thousands of nuclear warheads from newly independent nations that were once part of the Soviet Union (which, when it dissolved, left all weapons where they were.) CTR also paid for the dismantling of hundreds of missile silos and missile carrying submarines. Thousands of former weapons designers and technicians have been found good jobs, to keep them from going freelance with their special skills. But partly due to bureaucracy, partly due to Russian paranoia and partly due to corruption, the warhead security part of the program was not entirely successful. Now the Russians want to just be done with CTR because they believe it is used mainly to spy on Russia. The U.S. spent $6 billion on CTR and is trying to persuade the Russians to reconsider renewing the deal.

October 20, 2012: The Strategic Rocket Forces (long range missiles armed with nuclear warheads) completed a large-scale two-day drill. These forces are the main defense for Russia, as the conventional forces have declined since the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, losing over two-thirds of their combat power.

October 19, 2012: A Topol ICBM and R-29R Sineva SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) were test fired, the latter from a SSBM (nuclear powered missile carrying sub). Topols are launched from silos. Both tests were successful.

October 17, 2012: President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won most local elections held yesterday.

October 15, 2012:  India has been asked to join with Russia in forming a more vigorous anti-terrorism effort after NATO leaves Afghanistan in 2014. While American forces may remain, Russia sees drug gangs and Islamic radicals becoming more powerful in Afghanistan and providing bases for Islamic terrorists groups who operate against India and Russia, as well as the West in general. India is already increasing its counter-terror efforts in Central Asia, and Russia is simply offering to join forces to become more effective. It was earlier believed that Russia might try to work with Pakistan against Islamic terrorists, but apparently the Russians concluded that Pakistan was too sympathetic to Islamic radicals to be an effective ally against international Islamic terrorism. Let China (a longtime ally of Pakistan) worry about Pakistani support for terrorism. Russia has been a major trading partner with and arms supplier to India for over half a century and both countries are quite energetic in fighting Islamic terrorism.

October 13, 2012: The government announced that it had closed 20 foreign NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations, usually aid groups) in the Caucasus because of ties to foreign espionage agencies. But when contacted by foreign journalists, no NGOs in the Caucasus reported recent closings. The government announcement was then interpreted as a threat. A new law makes it easier for the government to shut down foreign NGOs.

October 12, 2012: In the Caucasus (Kabardino-Balkaria) one policeman and two Islamic terrorists died in a gun battle.

October 11, 2012: Russia is playing down the recent confession of a Canadian naval officer, who admitted he spied for Russia for over four years, being paid $3,000 a month for information on Canadian and NATO defense matters. The Russian ambassador to Canada described the matter as “marginal.”

October 10, 2012: Turkey forced a Syrian airliner, flying from Moscow, to land and be inspected. The Turks initially insisted they had found illegal (because of an arms embargo on Syria) items on the aircraft. Russia insisted it was parts for radar sets, which were legal. The Turks later admitted the Russians were right but said that the radar cargo should have been declared before the Syrian aircraft entered Turkish airspace.

October 9, 2012: Iraq agreed to buy $4.2 billion worth of Russian weapons and military equipment.

October 8, 2012: In the Caucasus (Dagestan) a policeman and three Islamic terrorists were killed in a gun battle.

Plane carrying legal shipment: Putins lapdog, Lavrov

Russia said that there were “no weapons” aboard a Syrian civilian jet that was grounded by Turkish authorities and that the plane was carrying a legal shipment of radar equipment.

“We have no secrets,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Oct. 12. “There were, of course, no weapons on the plane and could not have been any. There was a cargo on the plane that a legal Russian supplier was sending in a legal way to a legal customer.”

Lavrov said the Airbus A-320 was carrying radar components and transporting such items by civil aircraft does not contradict international norms, according to Russia Today. Lavrov added, however, that the cargo was of “dual purpose,” meaning it could have civilian and military applications. He said the Russian company that sent it to Syria will demand that Turkey return it.

Lavrov’s comments came a day after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the cargo included ammunition. Earlier in the day, a Russian newspaper report said the plane was carrying Russian radar parts for Syrian missile defense systems but not weapons.

12 boxes of radar parts

The plane was loaded with 12 boxes containing parts for radars used in the Syrian army’s missile defense systems, Kommersant quoted sources in the arms export industry as saying. The sources told the paper that the cargo needed no special documentation as it posed no risk to the crew of the plane or the aircraft itself.

“This is not a weapon. If a person takes a radio receiver that has been switched off onto the plane then does this pose a threat for the airliner or the passengers?” asked the source. “No international laws were violated.” The spokesman of Russia’s weapons export agency Rosoboronexport Vyacheslav Davidenko denied “there was any cargo belonging to us” on the plane, as Erdoğan had implied.

Russian defense agency sent ammunition: Turkish PM

‘The Russian arms exporting agency was the sender,’ PM Erdoğan (R) says speaking alongside Kazakh President Nazarbayev in Ankara

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that that the Syrian passenger plane forced to land in Ankara Oct. 10 was carrying banned ammunition, and named a Russian agency as sending the material to Syria.

“Russian arms exporting agency was the sender and the receiver was the Syrian Defense Ministry. The material has been confiscated and is being examined,” Erdoğan said, speaking at a joint press conference following talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

“Carrying such materials through our airspace is against international rules,” Erdoğan said, adding that on passenger flights it is even banned to carry a large number of jackknifes. “However, in this situation, this rule has unfortunately been violated.”

Erdoğan ruled out claims that the postponement of a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s scheduled for Oct. 14-15 was somehow related to the issue, saying that during a telephone conversation earlier this week the two leaders jointly decided to postpone the visit.

Syrian artillery hits Turkish neighborhood

An artillery shell apparently fired by the Syrian army hit a neighborhood in the Akçakale district on the Turkish side of the countries’ mutual border today.

The shell fell in the Hürriyet neighborhood of Akçakale, destroying the walls of two houses, as well as shattering windows and causing damage to numerous homes and businesses.

Akçakale Mayor Abdulhakim Ayhan said a loud explosion came from near the district governor's office and that they learned that an artillery shell had hit the town. He said no one was injured in the incident and that security forces were sweeping the area in case unexploded shells were present nearby.

Schools, which were opened in Akçakale this morning after being closed yesterday, was shut down again today due to intensifying clashes in the Syrian town of Tell Abyad, where the Syrian army is pounding rebel positions with heavy weapons to retake the settlement it lost to opposition forces two weeks ago.