US and Russia commanders exchange '10-12 calls' a day on Syria

Despite diplomatic tensions, the US and Russia have developed close military contact over their parallel campaigns on Syria's battlefields, with a hotline set up linking their air operations centres.
3 min read
24 August, 2017
The two powers are in frequent contact to keep their fighter jets apart [AFP]
US and Russia are exchanging "10 to 12" calls a day on Syria to keep their jets apart as they back different fighters on the ground, US officials told Reuters.

Even as tensions between the two powers fester, their military-to-military contacts are quietly weathering the storm on the battleground.

US and Russian military officials have been regularly communicating, with some of the contacts helping to draw a line on the map that separates US and Russian-backed forces waging parallel campaigns on Syria's shrinking battlefields.

There is also a telephone hotline linking the former Cold War foes' air operations centres to help keep US and Russian planes apart.

Moscow backs the Syrian regime, which is also aided by Iran and Lebanon's Hizballah, as it claws back territory from Syrian rebels and Islamic State fighters.

The US military is backing a collection of Kurdish and Arab forces focusing their firepower against Islamic State, part of a strategy to collapse the group's self-declared "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq.

While the conversations are not easy, contacts between the two sides have remained resilient, senior US commanders said.

We have to negotiate, and sometimes the phone calls are tense. Because for us, this is about protecting ourselves, our coalition partners and destroying the enemy

"The reality is we've worked through some very hard problems," said Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigian, the top US Air Force commander in the Middle East.

"In general, we have found a way to maintain the de-confliction line (that separates US and Russian areas of operation) and found a way to continue our mission," Harrigian, added in his interview to Reuters, which was given rare access to the US Air Force's hotline station, inside the Qatar-based Combined Air Operations Area.

As both sides scramble to capture what is left of Islamic State's caliphate, the risk of accidental contacts is growing.

"We have to negotiate, and sometimes the phone calls are tense. Because for us, this is about protecting ourselves, our coalition partners and destroying the enemy," Harrigian said, without commenting on the volume of calls.

Miscalculation

The risks of miscalculation came into full view in June, when the United States shot down a Syrian Su-22 jet that was preparing to fire on US-backed forces on the ground.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said those were not the only aircraft in the area. As the incident unfolded, two Russian fighter jets looked on from above and an American F-22 stealth aircraft kept watch from an even higher altitude, they told Reuters.

After the incident, Moscow publicly warned it would consider any planes flying west of the Euphrates River to be targets. But the US military kept flying in the area, and kept talking with Russia.

"The Russians have been nothing but professional, cordial and disciplined," Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the Iraq-based commander of the US-led coalition, told Reuters.