Middle East entertainment & amusement…

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

Iran recruits Afghan and Pakistani Shiites to fight in Syria

By KATHY GANNON - Associated Press | 9:25PM EDT - Saturday, September 16, 2017


In this file photo, a Pakistani boy, whose brother was killed in bombing, is comforted by a relative in Quetta, Pakistan.
Thousands of Pakistani and Afghan Shiites have been recruited by Iran to fight in Syria generating fears that their return
could aggravate sectarian rivalries, say counterterrorism officials as well as analysts, who track militant movements.
 — Photograph: Arshad Butt/Associated Press.

ISLAMABAD — Thousands of Shiite Muslims from Afghanistan and Pakistan are being recruited by Iran to fight with President Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria, lured by promises of housing, a monthly salary of up to $600 and the possibility of employment in Iran when they return, say counterterrorism officials and analysts.

These fighters, who have received public praise from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, even have their own brigades, but counterterrorism officials in both countries worry about the mayhem they might cause when they return home to countries already wrestling with a major militant problem.

Amir Toumaj, Iran research analyst at the U.S.-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said the number of fighters is fluid but as many as 6,000 Afghans are fighting for Assad, while the number of Pakistanis, who fight under the banner of the Zainabayoun Brigade, is in the hundreds.

In Afghanistan, stepped-up attacks on minority Shiites claimed by the upstart Islamic State group affiliate known as Islamic State in the Khorasan Province could be payback against Afghan Shiites in Syria fighting under the banner of the Fatimayoun Brigade, Toumaj said. Khorasan is an ancient name for an area that included parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.

“People were expecting blowback,” said Toumaj. IS “itself has its own strategy to inflame sectarian strife.”

Shiites in Afghanistan are frightened. Worshippers at a recent Friday prayer service said Shiite mosques in the Afghan capital, including the largest, Ibrahim Khalil mosque, were barely a third full. Previously on Fridays — the Islamic holy day — the faithful were so many that the overflow often spilled out on the street outside the mosque.

Mohammed Naim, a Shiite restaurant owner in Kabul issued a plea to Iran: “Please don't send the poor Afghan Shia refugees to fight in Syria because then Daesh attacks directly on Shias,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Pakistan has also been targeted by the IS in Khorasan province. IS has claimed several brutal attacks on the country’s Shiite community, sending suicide bombers to shrines they frequent, killing scores of devotees.

In Pakistan, sectarian rivalries routinely erupt in violence. The usual targets are the country's minority Shiites, making them willing recruits, said Toumaj. The most fertile recruitment ground for Iran has been Parachinar, the regional capital of the Khurram tribal region, that borders Afghanistan, he said. There, Shiites have been targeted by suicide bombings carried out by Sunni militants, who revile Shiites as heretics.

In June, two suicide bombings in rapid succession killed nearly 70 people prompting nationwide demonstrations, with protesters carrying banners shouting: “Stop the genocide of Shiites.”

A Pakistani intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said recruits are also coming from northern Gilgit and Baltistan. Recruiters are often Shiite clerics with ties to Iran, some of whom have studied in seminaries in Iran's Qom and Mashhad cities, said a second Pakistani official, who also spoke on condition he not be identified because he still operates in the area and exposing his identity would endanger him.

Yet fighters sign up for many reasons.

Some are inspired to go to Syria to protect sites considered holy to Shiite Muslims, like the shrine honoring Sayyida Zainab, the granddaughter of Islam's Prophet Muhammed. Located in the Syrian capital of Damascus, the shrine was attacked by Syrian rebels in 2013. Others sign up for the monthly stipend and the promise of a house. For those recruited from among the more than 1 million Afghan refugees still living in Iran it's often the promise of permanent residence in Iran. For Shiites in Pakistan's Parachinar it is outrage at the relentless attacks by Sunni militants that drives them to sign up for battle in Syria, said Toumaj.

Mir Hussain Naseri, a member of Afghanistan's Shiite clerics' council, said Shiites are obligated to protect religious shrines in both Iraq and Syria.

“Afghans are going to Syria to protect the holy places against attacks by Daesh,” he said. “Daesh is the enemy of Shias.”

Ehsan Ghani, chief of Pakistan's Counterterrorism Authority, told the Associated Press that his organization is sifting through hundreds of documents, including immigration files, to put a figure on the numbers of Pakistanis fighting on both sides of the many Middle East conflicts, including Syria. But it’s a cumbersome process.

“We know people are going from here to fight but we have to know who is going as a pilgrim (to shrines in Syria and Iraq) and who is going to join the fight,” he said.

Pakistan's many intelligence agencies as well as the provincial governments are involved in the search, said Ghani, explaining that Pakistan wants numbers in order to devise a policy to deal with them when they return home. Until now, Pakistan has denied the presence of the Islamic State group in Pakistan.

Alireza Nader, a senior policy analyst at the U.S.-based RAND Corporation, said Afghan and Pakistani recruits also provide Iran with future armies that Tehran can employ to enhance its influence in the region and as protection against perceived enemies.

Despite allegations that Iran is aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan, Nader says battle-hardened Shiite fighters are Tehran's weapon should relations with an Afghan government that includes the radical majority Sunni religious movement deteriorate.

“Once the Syrian civil war dies down Iran is going to have thousands, if not tens of thousands of militia, under its control to use in other conflicts,” he said. “There is a potential of Iran getting more involved in Afghanistan using militia because Iran is going to be really concerned about security on its border and it would make sense to use a proxy force.”

Pakistan too has an uneasy relationship with Iran. On occasion the anti-Iranian Jandullah militant group has launched attacks against Iranian border guards from Baluchistan province. In June, Pakistan shot down an Iranian drone deep inside its territory.

In Pakistan the worry is that returning fighters, including those who had fought on the side of IS, could start another round of sectarian bloodletting, said the intelligence official.

• Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan; Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-recruits-afghan-and-pakistani-shiites-to-fight-in-syria/2017/09/16/8b6f0186-9aae-11e7-af6a-6555caaeb8dc_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Good to see Iran dishing it out to ISIS.

I guess they have good reason to after ISIS terrorist attacks in Tehran.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

In wake of airstrike, U.S. military moves to establish
closer communication with Russian forces in Syria

By THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF | 2:48PM EDT - Sunday, September 17, 2017


An image released by Russia’s Defense Ministry in August 2016, shows a Sukhoi dropping bombs in the Syrian
province of Deir al-Zour. — Photograph: Russian Defense Ministry/Reuters TV.

OSLO — The Pentagon is taking additional steps to ensure that U.S. and Russian battlefield commanders are able to directly communicate with one another after an airstrike on U.S. proxy forces near Deir al-Zour, Syria, that wounded several fighters on Saturday, the United States' highest-ranking military officer said.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., told a small group of reporters on Sunday that deconfliction between the United States and Russia “didn't work” when Syrian and Russian aircraft bombed U.S.-backed Syrian fighters battling the Islamic State east of the Euphrates River.

Russia has denied participating in the strike, despite a U.S. statement on Saturday that specifically indicated that Russian aircraft took part in the bombing.

During a Saturday night phone call with his Russian counterpart, Chief of the General Staff of Russia's armed forces, General Valery Geramisov, Dunford proposed that the countries' respective battlefield commanders in charge of forces in Syria could use the deconfliction line established in 2015 to “address the fact that the enemy moves freely back and forth across the Euphrates River,” he said.


A fighter from Deir al-Zour military council, which fights under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in the village of Abu Fas,
in Hasaka province. — Photograph: Rodi Said/Reuters.

In the past, the deconfliction line was primarily staffed by a Russian and an American colonel responsible for alerting each other about their respective country's air operations, but now with the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Lieutenant General Paul Funk, and Colonel General Sergei Surovikin in communication, the two countries are likely to have a better understanding of where their forces are arrayed.

“It couldn't be more complex and crowded in that area,” Dunford said of the Euphrates River Valley. “Deconfliction is more difficult in that area than it was a few months ago.”

Traditionally the two countries have used the Euphrates as a dividing line, with Russian and Syrian government forces focused on attacking targets to the west while U.S.-backed forces and aircraft attacked to the east. In recent weeks, however, multiple offensive operations — launched by the United States and Russia — have nearly converged.

“We haven't resolved all the issues,” Dunford cautioned, adding that conversations between the two countries are ongoing. After the errant strike, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Dunford said.

• Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a staff writer at The Washington Post and a former Marine infantryman.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • U.S.-backed forces in Syria accuse Russia of airstrike

 • Boost for Assad as the Syrian army makes gains against ISIS in eastern Syria

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/09/17/following-airstrike-u-s-military-moves-to-establish-closer-communication-with-russian-forces-in-syria

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

U.S. and Iran accuse each other of backsliding on nuclear deal

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Iran's behavior on non-nuclear issues negates the deal's spirit.

By CAROL MORELLO | 3:17PM EDT - Sunday, September 17, 2017


Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaking at a press conference in London on Thursday. — Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images.

IRAN and the United States on Sunday tore into each other's behavior regarding the 2015 nuclear deal as America's top diplomat and Iran’s supreme leader traded accusations of backsliding on agreed-to commitments.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged that Iran is in “technical compliance” with its obligations under the pact negotiated by the Obama administration and five other world powers. But he faulted Tehran for its non-nuclear activities in the Middle East — backing militias in Yemen and Syria, supporting terrorist groups and testing ballistic missiles.

“We have a lot of issues with Iran,” Tillerson said on CBS's “Face the Nation”. “They're a yard long. The nuclear issue is one foot of that yard. We have two feet of other issues that we must deal with. And it has to do with Iran's destabilizing activities.”

For his part, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the ultimate power in Tehran's theocracy, took to his English-language Twitter account to label Washington as, in turn, domineering, bullying, oppressive, hounding and cruel — and corrupt and lying to boot.

“Every day US govt. exposes a new side of its viciousness & proves Imam Khomeini’s words true: U.S. govt. is the great Satan,” he tweeted.

The criticisms were lobbed at a critical moment for the Iran deal, which eased economic sanctions in return for Iran agreeing to restrictions on its nuclear program.

It is being kept alive for the time being, after President Trump put aside his disdain for the deal on Thursday and waived U.S. sanctions that were suspended under the agreement and must be revisited every 120 days. If he hadn't, the United States would have been in breach of its promises.

But the administration is still reviewing its policy toward Iran and the nuclear deal, and Trump has said he is inclined to say next month that Iran is not complying with its commitments. If he does, Congress will have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions, in effect breaking the U.S. commitment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said eight times that Iran is complying with the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as Tillerson allowed on Sunday.

The administration contends that Iran is violating the “spirit” of the deal, because in its preface it is stated that the nations negotiating it “anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security.”

Tillerson said that sentence explains, in a nutshell, why sanctions were lifted.

“But since the nuclear deal has been concluded, what we have witnessed is Iran has stepped up its destabilizing activities in Yemen, it stepped up its destabilizing activities in Syria, and exports arms to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, and it continues to conduct a very active ballistic missile program,” Tillerson said. “None of that, I believe, is consistent with that preamble commitment.”

Supporters of the deal say it was never intended to solve every issue between the United States and Iran. The diplomats who negotiated said at the time that the deal was narrowly focused on Iran's nuclear program because it was considered better to confront Tehran without the possibility of nuclear weapons.

Iran, which has always denied seeking to build nuclear weapons, has complained it has not received the economic benefits it expected from the deal because the United States has not done enough to convince the business community that it will remain in effect so long as Iran keeps its promises.

Iran's sense that it was shortchanged in the deal was behind a series of tweets by Khamenei on Sunday, in between congratulating graduating police cadets and criticizing Aung San Suu Kyi's silence on the plight of Burma's Rohingya.

Calling the U.S. approach to the nuclear deal “totally oppressive hounding & cruel” in one tweet, Khamenei in another tweet accused “corrupt, lying U.S. officials” of hypocrisy.

“Enemies must know if bullying works elsewhere in world, it won't work for Iran,” he said in another tweet. “Retreat has no place when it comes to our national interests.”

And he suggested that any move to decertify Iran's compliance or withdraw from the deal will not go unanswered.

“The Iranian nation stands strong.”

• Carol Morello is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, covering the State Department.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Fate of Iran nuclear deal is tenuous

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-and-iran-accuse-each-other-of-backpedaling-on-nuclear-deal/2017/09/17/9b0ab5e7-faee-43d5-812e-e7c1f0754b28_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

As Persian Gulf crisis persists, alarm in Washington deepens

The Trump administration fears that the bitter dispute among allies will damage U.S. interests.
The U.S. depends on the gulf states as its main air and sea launching pad
for the fight against the Islamic State, and as a bulwark against Iran.

By KAREN DeYOUNG | 6:15PM EDT - Sunday, Septeber 17, 2017


In this July 11th, 2017 photo U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani
take part in a press conference in Doha. Tillerson arrived in Qatar to try and mediate a dispute between the energy-rich country and its Gulf neighbours.
 — Photograph: Alexander W. Riedel/U.S. State Department/Associated Press.

MORE THAN three months after it began, the Persian Gulf dispute that has driven a deep wedge between America's closest allies in the region appears no closer to resolution.

The Trump administration, which depends on the gulf states as its main air and sea launchpad for the fight against the Islamic State, and as a bulwark against Iran, is starting to get worried.

“We have an awful lot of equities here,” a U.S. official said. “Is it acceptable that American business starts reporting to us that contracts are getting canceled because of the climate in the gulf?” Or that the air base “from which we rain down holy hell” on militants in Syria and Iraq is endangered? Or a unified Arab bulwark against Iran is fraying?

“We’re all starting to feel … that the Qatar crisis gets in the way of things we want to do,” said the official.

The initial eruption came just days after President Trump proclaimed the gulf allies united during a visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in late May. Charging that Qatar was financing terrorists and trying to undermine their governments, four nations in the region — gulf monarchies Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, joined by Egypt — broke relations and closed their air, land and sea borders to the tiny, energy-rich peninsula at the Straits of Hormuz.

Since then, the protagonists on both sides have waged a public war of insults and accusations, much of it through shrill, multimillion-dollar U.S. lobbying campaigns targeting political opinion in Washington.

The largest political ad buy of the summer came from an organization called the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, SAPRAC, which spent $1.6 million on television spots on local news and Washington broadcasts of national programs, according to data provided to The Washington Post by CMAG-Kantar Media, which tracks television advertising.

“One country in the gulf region is a threat to global security,” intones the narrator of the ad over doomsday music. “President Trump, Qatar cannot be trusted.”

Home to a crucial air base and more than 10,000 U.S. service members, Qatar has been cited in the past by U.S. officials for lax control over terrorist financing. But officials have also noted recent progress, and few appear to believe Qatar's sins are much worse than others in the region. Instead, many chalk up the conflict to what one person involved in U.S. efforts to end it called “personal animosity” among the gulf's ruling families, and differing outlooks on how best to keep themselves in power.

U.S. and foreign officials who discussed the crisis spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid fueling an already inflamed dispute.

At the beginning, it was Trump who spread the fire, with his open support of the accusations against Qatar. While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis avoided blame and called for negotiations, Trump hailed the “wisdom” of Saudi King Salman, reveled in Saudi purchases of U.S. arms, pointed a finger at Qatar's capital, Doha, and said the United States could launch its counterterrorism warplanes from somewhere else.

During the summer, Tillerson and Jared Kushner, Trump's White House adviser and son-in-law, traveled separately to the region. In August, Tillerson sent two U.S. envoys to the gulf, but no progress was reported.

It was not until early September, after months of cajoling from Tillerson and Mattis, that Trump apparently decided it was time to put an end to the spat. “What you're seeing now is the White House trying to push this, to say enough is enough, before it begins to affect military operations,” an official said.

At a September 7th news conference with the visiting emir of Kuwait, whose own mediation efforts have been unsuccessful, Trump said he might have to bring the parties to the White House and handle the negotiations himself.

“Very quickly, I think, we'll have something solved,” he said.

In telephone talks the next day with leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Trump facilitated a call between them.

But any rapprochement was short-lived. Within hours, both governments had publicly claimed that the other had blinked first and sought the dialogue. The effort was officially suspended.

The failure of Trump's personal diplomacy has left the United States with few options. There is little reason to think that the president, who plans to meet with some leaders from the region during the U.N. General Assembly, will have much better luck in person.

Tillerson has gone out of his way to bolster Qatar, calling demands by the Saudi-led quartet unreasonable and signing a new memorandum of understanding on terrorism financing with Doha. But the administration has left itself little leverage with the other side, unless Trump is willing to sacrifice arms sales and other Saudi-U.S. business deals, or temper his own fulsome praise for Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the principal Saudi partner in the fight against Qatar.

The Saudis and Emiratis have diligently courted the Trump White House. Even before the May presidential visit to Riyadh, according to U.S. intelligence, they were planning a new offensive in their long-running dispute with Qatar, correctly concluding that Trump would be sympathetic.

Small Qatar has long irked its neighbors by pursuing an impertinent foreign policy that they think contradicts their interests. A list of their 13 “non-negotiable” demands includes an end to Qatari support for political Islamic movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood; closing Al Jazeera, the state-funded Qatari media company; reducing ties with Iran, with which Qatar shares the world's largest gas field; and ejecting political dissidents who come from quartet countries.

Qatar has said it will talk with its accusers, but will not agree to anything that impinges on its sovereignty.

As U.S. policymakers wring their hands, the main beneficiaries of the dispute so far are the lobbying firms each side has hired to influence Washington, as reflected in their filings under the Justice Department's Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In August, the Podesta Group retroactively registered for work it had done since June on behalf of SAPRAC, the Saudi purchaser of the television ads, at a monthly fee of $50,000, not including production and other expenses or marked-up media buys.

That fee is relatively small compared with the multiple other firms employed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, some recently, and some on the payroll for years with monthly or quarterly fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Qatar has been a relative latecomer to the all-out influence war, but has gone on a hiring spree since early summer.

Rather than attacking its accusers, Qatar has focused on print and online ads emphasizing its close security ties with the United States and its own counterterrorism efforts. South Carolina-based Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough was hired at $100,000 a month in July to “build political capital” and relationships for Qatar, and to ensure “the right information is out there, and the right people know it,” said Christopher T. Kushing, the firm's managing director for public strategies.

Avenue Strategies, a firm tied to Trump campaign officials, is being paid $150,000 a month for “strategic consulting services,” and former Attorney General John Ashcroft's law firm received a $2.5 million retainer for “evaluating, verifying, and as necessary, strengthening [Qatar's] anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financial compliance programs,” according to the filings.

As far as the administration is concerned, however, the question of who is right has faded when compared to the potential damage of the dispute itself. The message to the gulf leaders, an official said, is that the cacophony of paid voices “is ham-handed, and they’re being taken to the cleaners by those guys.”

“We’re trying to tell them to knock it off.”

• Tom Hamburger and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

• Karen DeYoung is associate editor and senior national security correspondent for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Trump calls Qatar a ‘funder of terrorism’

 • Fixing Trump's blunders on Qatar

 • Trump seems to undercut Tillerson's remarks on Qatar

 • VIDEO: Mattis says U.S. has ‘shared interests with Qatar’

 • Arab media outlets echo Trump in criticism of Qatar

 • Inside the Trump-Tillerson divide over Qatar

 • The crisis over Qatar highlights Trump's foreign policy confusion

 • The blockade on Qatar is a smokescreen. Here's what's behind it.

 • Demands by Saudi-led Arab states for Qatar include shuttering Al Jazeera

 • Tillerson urges Qatar and the Gulf states to negotiate an end to their rift

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-persian-gulf-crisis-persists-alarm-in-washington-deepens/2017/09/17/3353c50a-970b-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html

[Donald]

Yeah....just another fuckup to add to the long list of fuckups left by OH-bummar 🙄

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Things aren't fuckups if they are causing difficulties for the idiot Donald Trump's administration.

And anyway, where or what is OH-bummar?

Is it a placename? An event? One of your offspring?

It's a really strange name I've never heard of.

Perhaps your brain is fucked-up again and making stuff up?

[Donald]

OH- bummar...you know..the guy you have been blowing for the last 8 years..but were you spitting or swallowing😳

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Why do you find everything such a bummer?

And by the way, it's spelt bummer, not bummar.

You need to go back to school and learn how to spell properly.

Then you need to take some happy pills so you don't end up so depressed that everything is a bummer for you.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

Russia threatens retaliatory strikes against U.S. troops
and their allies in Syria

Moscow accused U.S.-backed rebels of shelling positions where Russian forces
were active amid competing offensives in the eastern Syrian desert.

By DAVID FILIPOV and LIZ SLY | 6:25PM EDT - Thursday, September 21, 2017


A Russian soldier stands guard as a military helicopter takes off at an airport near Deir al-Zour, Syria, on September 15th, 2017.
 — Photograph: Associated Press.

MOSCOW — Russia on Thursday raised the threat of a direct confrontation with U.S. forces in Syria, saying that it would target areas occupied by American units and U.S.-backed militias if its troops came under fire.

The warning was issued amid rising tensions in the Syrian desert between the United States and its Kurdish and Arab allies on the one hand, and Russia, the Syrian regime and Iranian-backed militias on the other, as both converge on territory held by the Islamic State in eastern Syria.

A Russian military spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, had twice in recent days shelled Syrian government positions outside Deir al-Zour, a strategic city in the region.

Konashenkov said Russian special forces are helping Syrian government troops fight Islamic State militants in the battle for the city.

Moscow has conveyed to the U.S. military command “in no uncertain terms that any attempts to open fire from areas where SDF fighters are located would be quickly shut down,” Konashenkov said in a statement. “Firing positions in those areas will be immediately suppressed with all military means.”



The tensions have been escalating as the SDF advances against the Islamic State from the northeast toward Russian-backed Syrian government forces pushing from the west, risking a collision at some point.

The warning that Russia is prepared to take military action to check any further advances by the U.S.-backed forces came after the United States said on Saturday that Russian warplanes had struck an SDF position north of Deir al-Zour. Soldiers of the U.S.-led international coalition against the Islamic State were present at the time, according to a U.S. military statement.

The United States says it has about 500 troops in northern and eastern Syria, mainly Special Operations forces advising the SDF. But the actual number is larger, because the publicly announced figure does not include service members assigned to Syria for less than 18 months, according to Colonel Ryan Dillon, a U.S. military spokesman.

Past close encounters between the United States and Russia in Syria have been resolved through the mechanism of “deconfliction” agreements, which outline where the rival forces may operate.

But there is no such agreement defining the U.S. and Russian areas of operation around the key towns and villages stretching south along the Euphrates River from Deir al-Zour toward the town of Bukamal on the Iraqi border. The area contains most of Syria's oil and controls access to the Iraqi border, and it is viewed as a critical prize for all sides involved.

The Pentagon played down the tensions, saying that U.S. military officers and their Russian counterparts held a face-to-face meeting in Syria recently to discuss ways to mitigate future incidents.

The meeting lasted more than an hour, according to Dillon. Addressing reporters at the Pentagon from Baghdad, he said he expected follow-up meetings in the coming days. Although U.S. and Russian units are unable to communicate directly, their battlefield commanders are regularly talking to one another, he added.

Syrian government officials have said that reclaiming the area is essential as they pursue their goal of restoring sovereignty over all of Syria. They also want to prevent the United States from gaining influence over any more Syrian territory.

For Iran — a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — the Iraqi border area represents an opportunity to cement its arc of influence, stretching from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut on the Mediterranean.

U.S. military officials say their primary goal is to defeat the Islamic State, which is thought to have concentrated many of its senior leaders in the area and is expected to make its last stand along the Euphrates River valley.

But Trump administration officials have said on several occasions that they have set the additional goal of containing any further expansion of Iranian influence in areas where the Islamic State is defeated. The Russian threat appeared to serve as a warning that if Washington intends to take on Iran in the area, it will have to contend with Russia as well.

The last time U.S.- and Russian-backed forces came close to collision in Syria, in the southeast near the border with Iraq, a full-scale confrontation was averted by negotiations securing a 34-mile deconfliction zone around two small U.S. outposts, Tanf and Zakaf. The bases had been established with a view to backing a small Pentagon-trained force of Syrian rebels to advance north in a bid to capture Islamic State-held Bukamal.

The issue was settled after Syrian troops and Iranian militias instead struck out to the north of the bases, reaching the Iraqi border and cutting the U.S.-backed forces' route to Bukamal.

The U.S. military said this week that it had abandoned the base at Zakaf, leaving the area to be overrun by Syrian troops and their Iranian-backed militia allies.

• Liz Sly reported from Beirut. Thomas Gibbons-Neff in Washington contributed to this report.

• David Filipov is The Washington Post's bureau chief in Moscow, focusing on Russia and the republics of the former Soviet Union. He previously reported for The Boston Globe from Boston, Russia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Liz Sly is The Washington Post's Beirut bureau chief. She has spent more than 15 years covering the Middle East, including the Iraq war. Other postings include Africa, China and Afghanistan.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Watch Russian subs fire cruise missiles at ISIS targets in Syria

 • How far could the dangerous end-game in eastern Syria go?

 • U.S.-backed forces in Syria accuse Russia of airstrike

 • U.S. risks further battles as it steps deeper into Syrian quagmire

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russia-warns-of-retaliation-if-facing-fire-from-us-led-coalitionin-syria/2017/09/21/00e3b81c-9eba-11e7-8ed4-a750b67c552b_story.html

[Donald]

Yes...good to see America and Russia playing in the same sandpit...like friends😜

[aDjUsToR]

Wasn't it Clinton /Obama who decided it would be a clever idea to arm jihadist "rebels"

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

That was Ronnie Ray-Guns.

The jihadists were fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, so Ronnie decided to arm them.

Fast forward a few years, and that dumb Republican president's grand plan blew up in America's face.

And now we have another idiot Republican president called Donald J. Trump who is equally as STUPID as Ronnie Ray-Guns was.

Hilarious entertainment & amusement, though.

[Donald]

Ktj...."The jihadists were fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan....."

Ahhh ...yes...when the Russians suffered a humiliating defeat😉

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Yep.....the Russians ended up in a HUGE QUAGMIRE.

Just like the same HUGE QUAGMIRE America is trapped in today in Afghanistan.

The sixteen-year-long war that shows no sign of ending, and probably won't for another decade or two or three, while it sucks America dry.

At least the Soviet Union had the sense to cut their losses and get out.

Hilarious, when you think about it....just how DUMB America is, eh?

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

This is how Vietnam ended for the Americans....





....it is most likely how Afghanistan will eventually end for the Americans.

Hehehehe.....hahahahaha.....ROFLMAO!!!

[Donald]

Ahhh yeah...nah...I can only assume that America does not want it used as a terrorist training camp😉

...which also protects us...that's why we contribute in a modest way to the effort😜

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

We?!?!?!?!?

Tell us all about the modest way you contribute in Afghanistan.

Ooooops, I forgot....you are one of those warmongering idiots who is too scared to put your own body on the line because you are a gutless wonder.

Just like Donald Trump.

[Donald]

We contribute by deploying defence force people to help in the fight against terrorism 😉

"Gutless wonder...."......says the whimp who has lived all his life in the foetal position within the womb of the public service

[aDjUsToR]

"This is how Vietnam ended for the Americans...." and various insane gloating.

Yes, that's because lefties protested and the democratic government responded accordingly.

Australia has a large Vietnamese population, most of whom escaped from the communist madmen in Vietnam. You need to speak to them to get a reality check. The left live in a world of unreality regarding the Vietnam war.

[aDjUsToR]

How are the jihadists doing in Syria with the Russians?.
Are you going to convert to Islam KTJ? 😁

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

The mighty Soviet Union Russia, along with Iran and Hezbollah, is dealing to ISIS in Syria.

That is when the stupid Americans aren't getting in the way with their stupid “regime change” ideas.

[Donald]

The Americans have lost interest..they they look upon Syria now as "Putins Baby"... sucker..😉

..very astute move by Trump.....he would be the king of the sucker punch😜

...he's several steps ahead of your average demented leftie and rail worker😉

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Hezbollah will get control of Syria's oil fields.

And that will be a GREAT VICTORY!!

[Donald]

Ahhh...yeah...nah...I'm sure Assad  and Putin will be ok with that😳