Move follows Moscow’s warning coalition planes west of Euphrates will be a potential target after US shot down Syrian fighter jet

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This article is more than 2 years old

Australia has suspended air combat missions over Syria after Russia threatened that it would treat any plane from the US-led coalition flying west of the Euphrates river as a potential target.



Russia said it was responding to US planes shooting down a Syrian air force jet on Sunday. The US said its planes had acted to defend US-backed forces seeking to capture Raqqa, the Islamic State (Isis) stronghold in north-east Syria.

“As a precautionary measure, Australian defence force strike operations into Syria have temporarily ceased,” the Australian Department of Defence said on Tuesday.

Australia has six fighter jets based in the United Arab Emirates that strike targets in Syria and Iraq.

Australia does have influence. It should use it to create safe zones in Syria | Hamish de Bretton-Gordon Read more

A spokesman for the Department of Defence told the ABC that the situation would be monitored and sorties over Iraq would continue. “Australian defence force personnel are closely monitoring the air situation in Syria and a decision on the resumption of ADF air operations in Syria will be made in due course,” he said.

The UK Ministry of Defence said it would continue its operations against Isis as part of the US-led coalition in Syria.

Moscow’s warning on Monday to US-allied warplanes west of the Euphrates escalated the threat of a direct Russian-American confrontation in Syria, following the first US shooting down of a fighter jet belonging to the regime since the start of the civil war six years ago.

Russia stressed it would in future be tracking the coalition’s jets, not shooting them down, but added that “a threat for those jets may appear only if they take action that poses a threat to Russian aircraft”.

Moscow’s foreign ministry said: “All kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] of the international coalition, detected to the west of the Euphrates river will be tracked by the Russian SAM systems as air targets.”

The Russian foreign ministry also said it would respond to the attack by suspending its communications channel with US forces, which is designed to prevent collisions and dangerous incidents in Syrian airspace.



The top US general, Joseph Dunford, sought to play down the repercussions of the incident, insisting the hotline established eight months ago between US central command in Qatar and its Russian equivalent in Syria was still open and functioning.

The Russian military had threatened to close the hotline, known as the “deconfliction channel”, in April after the US president, Donald Trump, ordered a missile strike against a Syrian airbase allegedly involved in a chemical weapons attack.

The growing risk of a confrontation between the US and Russia follows Trump’s decision to grant his military chiefs untrammelled control of military strategy in Syria.



The deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on Monday said the US strike “has to be seen as a continuation of America’s line to disregard the norms of international law”.



“What is this if not an act of aggression? It is, if you like, help to those terrorists that the US is fighting against, declaring they are carrying out an anti-terrorism policy,” he said.

The Pentagon insisted it was not seeking to escalate the conflict and had acted only after the Syrian jet in question had dropped bombs near US partner forces involved in the fight to wrest Raqqa from Isis control.



“We made every effort to warn those individuals not to come any closer and then the commander made a judgment that it was a threat to the forces that we are supporting and took action,” Dunford said.

Col John Thomas, a spokesman for US Central Command, said there were no US forces in the immediate vicinity but that the SDF was under threat for more than two hours.



The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters working alongside western special forces, said it would take action to defend itself from Syrian warplanes if attacks continued.

The tensions between Washington and Moscow over efforts to dislodge Isis from its Raqqa stronghold are a long way from Trump’s plan to work with Russia in Syria to defeat the terror group.

</s>Russia's defence ministry says it will treat US-led coalition planes in Syria, west of the Euphrates River, as targets after the US military shot down a Syrian Air Force jet on Sunday (18 June).

Moscow has condemned the US downing of the Syrian government fighter jet after it dropped bombs nears US partner forces.

The Russian defence ministry says in a statement that, starting Monday, it will track all jets and drones of the US-led coalition west of the Euphrates and treat them as targets.

The ministry also called on the US military to provide a full account of why it decided to shoot down the Syrian SU-22.

Russia, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has been providing an air cover to the government's offensive on Isis since 2015.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies on Monday that the downing was akin to "helping the terrorists that the US is fighting against".

Ryabkov asks: "What is this, if not an act of aggression?"</s>BEIRUT (AP) — Australia on Tuesday suspended its airstrikes against Islamic State group targets in Syria as a precaution, after a U.S. fighter jet shot down a Syrian warplane earlier this week and Russia warned the U.S.-led coalition from flying over Syrian army positions west of the Euphrates River.

The announcement from Canberra came as a brief, two-day truce collapsed in the southern Syrian city of Daraa and nearby areas where government forces have gained ground.

Australia is part of a U.S.-led coalition that has been waging war against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.

The U.S. military shot down the Syrian warplane on Sunday, saying it had targeted an American-allied, Kurdish-led force that is battling the IS extremists in their de facto capital, Raqqa. That led Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, to warn that it would target U.S.-led coalition planes flying west of the Euphrates River.

In another first, Iran — another close Assad ally — fired ballistic missiles at IS targets in eastern Syria, in the province of Deir el-Zour, later on Sunday. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard described the strike as revenge for Islamic State attacks on Tehran earlier this month that killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 50.

With the skies over Syria growing increasingly crowded, a statement from the Australian Defense Department released in the capital, Canberra, said that “Australian Defense Force protection is regularly reviewed in response to a range of potential threats.”

Australia has six fighter jets based in the United Arab Emirates that strike targets in Syria and Iraq.

On Monday, a day after the downing of the Syrian plane, Russia threatened aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition in Syrian-controlled airspace and suspended a hotline intended to avoid collisions in retaliation for the downing.

A spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Ramazan Sharif, said all six ballistic missiles it launched on Syria hit their targets, according to “local sources and drone films.”

Sharif told The Associated Press that the missile launch reflected Iran’s “military power,” though Iran has no intention of starting another war.

The remarks came amid questions whether the strike had been effective. It was not known what exactly was hit and Iran has provided no details. Israeli security officials said Monday they were studying the missile strike to see what they could learn about its accuracy and capabilities.

In the Syrian capital, Damascus, rebels fired artillery shells from the suburbs into the city, wounding at least three people, according to the state news agency SANA.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the eastern neighborhood of Jobar was struck on Tuesday by 12 airstrikes, adding that government forces are trying to push into the area.

Fighting and bombardment also resumed early Tuesday in the contested city of Daraa and nearby areas where a 48-hour truce went into effect on Saturday. The truce was meant to be extended but now appears to have collapsed.

A Syrian military official in Damascus said the truce was not extended. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

“The situation is back as it was in Daraa city and fighting is ongoing,” said Daraa-based opposition activist Ahmad al-Masalmeh. “The regime made the truce and then violated it.”

The Observatory also reported that government troops had captured a hill west of the city and a former army base that was held by rebels. It said government helicopters dropped 55 barrel bombs on Daraa while warplanes carried out about 20 airstrikes.

Daraa is where Syria’s crisis first broke out in March 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s government. The crisis quickly became a civil war, which has since left at least 400,000 people dead.

The push by the Syrian government forces in the Daraa area appears headed for the Jordanian border, two weeks after Assad’s troops reached the border with Iraq for the first time in years.

Associated Press writers Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.</s>Syria ops normal. Mostly. Tensions remain high between the United States and Russia after Sunday’s shoot down of a Syrian jet, and Moscow’s threats to begin tracking all coalition flights west of the Euphrates River with its warplanes and missile defense systems. There’s already been a bit of fallout. Australia announced Tuesday it had suspended its flights into Syria, “as a precautionary measure,” Australia’s Department of Defence said in a statement.

Strikes continue. A daily roundup of airstrikes released by the U.S. Central Command Tuesday showed eight strikes around Raqqa, which sits directly on the Euphrates. “Coalition aircraft continue to conduct operations [unescorted by Russian aircraft] throughout Syria,” Col. Ryan Dillon, the Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, told SitRep in an email Tuesday.

He added that despite Russian claims to have shut down the “hotline” between American and Russian military officers in Syria, “we continue to use the de-confliction line with the Russians. The Coalition is always available to de-conflict with the Russians.”

Syrians on the move. In southern Syria, government forces recently took the al Waleed border crossing, an ISIS-held crossing close to the al Tanf garrison where 150 U.S. Special Operations Forces are based. For the first time in years Syrians greeted Iraqi troops, who pushed the Islamic State from their side of the border crossing over the weekend. U.S. military officials said they believe the reports of the border meet and greet are true, but had no further comment. FP’s Paul McLeary has more on the latest complications in the almost three-year American effort in Syria.

Plans? The White House has yet to be fully briefed on plans the Pentagon has drawn up for Afghanistan, but according to a Reuters report, the Pentagon and the Trump administration are considering options in both Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, and Washington appears ready to harden its approach toward Pakistan to crack down on Pakistan-based militants launching attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.” Potential responses being discussed “include expanding U.S. drone strikes, redirecting or withholding some aid to Pakistan and perhaps eventually downgrading Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally,” officials said.

Baltic buildup. NATO forces and their Russian counterparts are putting the final pieces in place on the years-long buildup of their forces in the Baltic, a Cold War-style standoff that has troops on both sides on high alert. On Monday, troops from Latvia, Canada, Poland, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Albania, marked the completion of the deployment of the fourth and final NATO battle group to the region. In all, NATO has positioned some 4,500 troops in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.

The Wall Street Journal notes that there’s also an American tank brigade deployed to Central and Eastern Europe, and B-2 stealth bombers have been sent to Europe. “Russia, too, is enlarging its forces. It is creating a larger permanent military presence in the region, including missiles and new army units, moves it says counter the NATO deployments. Russia and Belarus are also preparing for a large military exercise in September.” More here from the Journal’s Julian Barnes who is in Lithuania watching a massive war game being planed out by NATO forces.

Many of those NATO allies are also clamoring for more U.S.-made F-16s, Defense One reports from the Paris Air Show.

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

North Korea. The American imprisoned by North Korea for an act of vandalism has died after returning to the U.S. in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness.” The family of Otto Warmbier announced that he had died at his home in Virginia on Monday afternoon. President Trump issued a statement of condolence to Warmbier’s family, saying his passing “deepens my Administration’s determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency.” The Washington Post reports that Warmbier’s death may add support to legislation introduced by two Congressmen, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Joe Wilson (R-SC), to tightly regulate Americans’ travel to North Korea.

Step up. The State Department is calling out China for not doing enough to combat terrorism and the threat from the Islamic State. Reuters reports that acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia Susan Thornton specified Iraq as a place China could be more active, saying it “should be doing to more to contribute to the efforts of the international coalition to defeat ISIS.” Thornton would like to see Beijing contribute more resources to countries struggling against terrorism and help out with capacity-building for police and military forces.

South China Sea. China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea is leading to some new partnerships among its neighbors to push back against Beijing’s assertions. The Diplomat reports that Vietnam and Japan carried out a joint exercise off Vietnam’s coast aimed at stopping illegal fishing. The focus on fishing is likely a reflection of China’s clashes with South China Sea countries over fishing rights. In 2017 China declared a moratorium on fishing in waters claimed by both Vietnam and the Philippines, with fishing rights proving a frequent flashpoint in Beijing’s territorial disputes with its neighbors.

Showdown in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia claims to have caught three Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops entering the Kingdom’s territorial waters. According to a Saudi statement, the men were caught when three armed boats headed towards the the Saudi oil field of Marjan. Saudi naval forces managed to seize one boat while the other two escaped. A separate Saudi statement claims the boats were part of a planned terrorist attack. Iranian news outlets, however, claim that the boats were fishing vessels that drifted off course and were fired on by Saudi forces.

Factions. The Afghan government is trying to deepen the divisions within the Taliban by providing support to a breakaway faction of the group known as the Renouncers. The New York Times reports that the faction is comprised of followers of Mullah Mohammad Rasoul, who broke off from the Taliban after discovering that Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour had kept the death of his predecessor, Taliban leader Mullah Omar, a secret for years. The group is primarily based in Helmand and the Afghan government has been supplying it with money, weapons, and intelligence as it battles the Taliban for control of districts.

Springtime in Paris. Aerospace companies are in Paris and ready for their runway closeups as they show off the latest products for the Paris Air Show. Lockheed’s F-35 stealth fighter jet is the it-girl thus far, making its Paris debut on Monday with some acrobatic showing off for onlookers. F-35 Integration Office Brigadier General Select Todd Canterbury described the jet’s appearance at the show as a demonstration of resolve to the NATO alliance and a statement that “we have got the capability to respond to any action necessary.”

Malware markets. Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab issued a new report uncovering what they say is malware sold by an Israeli cybersecurity firm being used to spy on reporters as well as human rights and anti-corruption activists in Mexico. The group says it found messages sent to the targets containing links to Pegasus spyware made by Israel’s NSO group. Citizen Lab researchers previously attributed malware to NSO Group after finding that it exploited a vulnerability in Apple’s iOS mobile operating system.</s>By The Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia says it will treat US-led coalition planes in Syria, west of the Euphrates, as targets after US downed Syrian jet.</s>Russia on Monday angrily condemned the downing of a Syrian aircraft by a U.S. fighter as a "flagrant violation of international law," and said its forces will treat U.S.-led coalition aircraft and drones as targets if they are operating in Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates in areas while Russian aviation is on combat missions.

The Russian defense ministry also said it is suspending an agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between Russian and U.S.-led coalition aircraft operating over Syria.

Russia, which has provided military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2015, was reacting to U.S. military confirmation that a U.S. F-18 Super Hornet shot down a Syrian SU-22 fighter-bomber on Sunday. The Syrian jet had just dropped bombs near forces known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which are aligned with the U. S. military in the campaign against the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, U.S.-backed opposition fighters said that Assad's forces have been attacking their positions in the northern Raqqa province, and warned that they would take action if the attacks continue.

On Monday, the Russian defense ministry said that its warplanes had been in operation in the area of the encounter between the U.S. and Syrian jets, and said that the coalition had not used the deconflicting hotline to warn the Russian jet.

"Multiple military actions of U.S. aviation under the guise of fighting terrorism against the legal military of a state that is a member of the United Nations are a flagrant violation of international law and constitute de facto military aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic," the ministry said.

"We view these actions by the American command as a conscious failure to neglect their responsibilities within the memorandum," the ministry said.

Russia briefly suspended the 2015 memorandum of understanding on the air operations after U.S. forces fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base in April.

Also on Monday, a senior Russian diplomat warned that the downing of the Syrian jet was "yet another step in a direct and dangerous escalation."

"We are warning Washington not to take such actions in the future," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency.

The confrontation took place late Sunday near the central city of Tabqa, hours after Syrian government forces harassed a U.S.-backed local ground force with airstrikes.

It was the first time that the American military has shot down a Syrian warplane during the six-year conflict, and followed a series of U.S. airstrikes against Iran-backed forces advancing on partner forces in a strategically-prized swathe of land along the Iraqi border.

Outside observers said that Sunday's strike underscored a growing willingness on the part of Assad's forces to confront the U.S.-led coalition as they jostle to roll back Islamic State militants from eastern Syria.

That effort has been bolstered by the freeing up of thousands of Shiite militias that had fought in a campaign across the border to capture the city of Mosul from Islamic State militants.

"The wild card here is the logic of an Assad regime which has decided that it no longer wants to be constrained to a western Syria-based statelet," said Nicholas A. Heras, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security.

That shift has been driven by an assessment that the Trump's administration could use the territory its forces capture as a bargaining chip with which to push Assad into a political transition or Syria into a decentralized political system, Heras added.

In Moscow, officials argued that Sunday's shoot-down was intended as a message aimed squarely at them.

Franz Klintsevich, deputy head of the defense and security committee of the Russian upper house of parliament, called the incident "an aggression and a provocation" directed at Russia.

"It looks like Donald Trumps' United States is a source of a brand-new danger both in the Middle East and the world at large," Klintsevich wrote on his Facebook page.

Another member of the upper house, Alexei Pushkov, tweeted that the incident was "a new act of war" against the Syrian government.

The upper house, the Federation Council, is a largely toothless body that essentially carries out Putin's policies with little opposition.

The reaction of Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was more muted. Russia's top diplomat said that the United States should show respect Syria's territorial integrity and that any actions on the ground "should be coordinated with Damascus."

"We call on the United States and all others who have their forces or their advisers 'on the ground' to ensure coordination in our work," the official Russian Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying at a meeting with the foreign ministers of Brazil, India and China in Beijing.

Putin last week said that Syria has proven to be a useful testing ground for advanced Russian weapons systems.

"It has done enormous good for our defense industry," Putin told Russians in his annual televised call-in show. "I can say that the experience our armed forces have gained under combat conditions, especially with the use of cutting-edge weapons, is invaluable."</s>On Sunday, a US jet shot down a Syrian Su-22 fighter-bomber near the city of Tabqah. The US-led coalition issued a statement alleging that Syrian aircraft attacked Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions, explaining that the coalition downed the Syrian jet as a part of "collective self-defense of Coalition partnered forces." Damascus claimed that the aircraft was carrying out a mission against Daesh (terrorist group banned in Russia).

"The suspension of the memorandum on flights over Syria with the United States by Russia is a logical reaction to provocative actions of the Western coalition toward pro-government forces and the Syrian army. The Syrian fighter aircraft, which was shot down on June 18, became the last straw," Slutsky told reporters.

"This doesn't go in line with the fight against terrorism, rather it is the other way round," Slutsky said.

The memorandum on safe flight over Syria was signed by Russia and the United State after Russia launched its air campaign in Syria in September 2015 at the request of Syria's government. The memorandum stipulated an exchange of information regarding the two countries' flights in Syria's skies in order to prevent incidents.

The US-led coalition has been fighting against Daesh in Syria without permission by Damascus. The anti-Daesh coalition is also supporting the Kurdish-led SDF militias advancing on Raqqa.</s>The White House said on Monday that coalition forces fighting Islamic State militants in Syria retained the right to self-defence as Russia warned it viewed any planes flying in its area of operations as potential targets.

Tensions escalated on Sunday as the U.S. military brought down a Syrian military jet near Raqqa for bombing near U.S.-allied forces on the ground, the first time Washington had carried out such an action in the multi-pronged civil war.

It was also the first time the U.S. Air Force had shot down a manned aircraft since May 1999.

In a move that will fan tensions between Washington and Moscow, Russia made clear it was changing its military posture in response to the U.S. downing of the jet.

Russia, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said it would treat U.S.-led coalition aircraft flying west of the Euphrates River in Syria as potential targets and track them with missile systems and military aircraft. It stopped short of saying it would shoot them down.

The Russian Defence Ministry said it was also immediately scrapping a Syrian air safety agreement with Washington designed to avoid collisions and dangerous incidents.

Moscow accused Washington of failing to honour the pact by not informing it of the decision to shoot down the Syrian plane despite Russian aircraft being airborne at the same time.

Washington hit back, saying it would "do what we can to protect our interests."

"The escalation of hostilities among the many factions that are operating in this region doesn't help anybody. And the Syrian regime and others in the regime need to understand that we will retain the right of self-defence, of coalition forces aligned against ISIS," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

The U.S. military said it was repositioning its aircraft over Syria to ensure the safety of American air crews targeting Islamic State.

The White House also said it would work to keep lines of communication open with Russia amid the new tensions. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the United States was working to restore a "deconfliction" communications line with Russia meant to avoid an accidental clash over Syria.

Marine General Joseph Dunford said there were still communications between a U.S. air operations centre in Qatar and Russian forces on the ground in Syria, adding: "We'll work diplomatically and military in the coming hours to re-establish deconfliction."

The U.S. Central Command had issued a statement saying the downed Syrian military jet had been dropping bombs near U.S.-backed SDF forces, which are seeking to oust Islamic State from the city of Raqqa.

It said the shooting down of the plane was "collective self-defence" and the coalition had contacted Russian counterparts by telephone via an established "de-confliction line to de-escalate the situation and stop the firing.

Russia is supporting Assad militarily with air power, advisers and special forces as he tries to roll back Islamic State and other militant groups. Unlike the United States, it says its presence is sanctioned by the Syrian government.

Adding to the tension, Iran launched missiles at Islamic State targets in eastern Syria on Sunday, a strike seen as a projection of military power into part of Syria identified as a top priority by Damascus and its allies.</s>Frey is a freelance journalist specialising in migration, politics, and business. He is the producer and host of the Migrant Crisis Podcast. He is on twitter @freylindsayMCP

On Sunday afternoon the US-led coalition fighting Isis blocked pro-Assad forces from entering the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)-held town of Ja’Din in Raqqa province.

And then they called the Russians.

It’s called the de-confliction hotline. Imagine a wire stretching from the Persian gulf to the eastern Mediterranean with one tin can at the US Air base at Al Udeid in Qatar and the other at Russian-rented Khmeimim air base in Western Syria.

The line exists mostly to prevent confusion between the two superpowers on what the other is doing in the region.

Before the US fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at Shayrat Airfield, for example, they hopped on the line to let Russia know it was coming.

Chris Woods, director of Airwars, which tracks harm to civilians on the ground, described the hotline mainly as being there to prevent Russian, Syrian, US and other aircraft from crashing into each other.

Woods says while there is clearly value in having a hotline in place he doesn’t think it has ever done a great deal to protect civilians from airstrikes.

The line also functions as a way of easing tensions after skirmishes, as the various forces inevitably encroach on each other’s territory. That’s why the Americans called up on Sunday.

Unfortunately these efforts fell short and the engagement continued, reaching a peak late in the afternoon when according to the coalition:

In other words the US say they shot down a Syrian bomber for attacking coalition allies.

The Russians say the bomber was operating in support of a government anti-Isis offensive and the US were out of line for getting involved.

They said the action is a blatant breach of international law and constitutes an act of military aggression against the Syrian regime.

And now they’ve said they’re cutting off the hotline.

(As of) June 19, 2017, the Russian Defence Ministry has stopped the cooperation with the American party within the Memorandum on prevention of incidents and providing of flight security during the operations in Syria. In the combat mission zones of the Russian aviation in the air space of Syria, all kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs of the international coalition detected to the west of the Euphrates River will be tracked by the Russian SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems as air targets.

That is to say Russian forces will no longer warn the US when they are carrying out exercises and will treat coalition aircraft as potentially hostile.

Or at least that’s what they seem to be saying. Airwars’ Chris Woods says the signals coming from Russia are somewhat ambiguous and it is unclear how much consequence this statement actually holds.

But he said the threatened ending of the de-confliction hotline is something to worry about nonetheless.

The main issue here according to Woods is that there are two major international powers, each with a significant number of aircraft and weaponry as well as perhaps a dozen other international belligerents, all conducting strikes at various times in a very cramped space.</s>Smoke billows from buildings in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa on Sunday during an offensive by US-backed fighters to retake the Daesh terror group bastion (AFP photo)

BEIRUT — Russia on Monday warned it would track US-led coalition aircraft in central Syria as "targets" and halted an incident-prevention hotline with Washington after US forces downed

Moscow has only once before suspended the hotline, which was established in October 2015 to prevent conflict between the different forces operating in Syrian airspace.

The shootdown incident and Russia's response further complicate Syria's six-year war and come as the US-led coalition and allied fighters battle to oust the Daesh terror group from its Syrian bastion Raqqa.

Analysts say neither Washington nor President Bashar Assad's regime appear to be seeking further confrontation, but warn that the risks are high in Syria's increasingly crowded battlefields.

Russia’s foreign ministry accused Washington of failing to use the hotline before downing the plane near Raqqa, and called for a “careful investigation by the US command” into the incident.

“Any flying objects, including planes and drones of the international coalition, discovered west of the Euphrates River will be tracked as aerial targets by Russia’s air defences on and above ground,” it warned.

The Syrian jet was shot down on Sunday evening after regime forces engaged fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance battling with US support against Daesh, in an area close to Raqqa.

The American F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down the Syrian SU-22 around 7:00pm as it “dropped bombs near SDF fighters” south of the town of Tabaqa, the coalition said in a statement.

It said that several hours earlier, regime forces had attacked the SDF in another town near Tabaqa, wounding several and driving the SDF from the town.

The coalition said the Syrian warplane had been shot down “in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defence of coalition partnered forces”.

Syria’s army disputed the account, saying its plane was hit while “conducting a mission against the terrorist Daesh group”.

It warned of “the grave consequences of this flagrant aggression”.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov called it a “continuation of America’s line to disregard the norms of international law”, adding: “What is this if not an act of aggression?”

The incident was the latest skirmish between the US-led coalition and regime forces in the increasingly tense and crowded space in Syria’s north and east.

The coalition has for months backed SDF forces in their bid to capture Raqqa, an operation in which the regime has not been involved.

The SDF entered Raqqa for the first time earlier this month and now holds four neighbourhoods in the east and west of the city.

Damascus has instead turned its focus further east, to the largely Daesh-held oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor, where government forces are besieged in part of the provincial capital.

It is advancing towards the region on three fronts, south of Raqqa, through the badia desert region in central Syria, and along Syria’s eastern border.

But the advances have created conflict with the US-led coalition, particularly along the Syrian border, where US and other foreign forces are training an anti-Daesh force at the Tanf garrison.

In recent weeks, the coalition has fired on pro-regime ground forces approaching the garrison and shot down a pro-regime armed drone.

The coalition describes these incidents as “force protection” measures and says its primary focus remains targeting Daesh.

Outside of coalition operations, US forces have only once directly targeted the regime, when Washington launched a barrage of strikes in April against an airbase it said was the launchpad for an alleged chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians.

Sam Heller, a Syria expert at The Century Foundation think tank, said the regime was provoking confrontations, but neither side appeared to want a major escalation.

“I think that it was just that the regime engaged in a provocation and then a lower-rung US commander responded in self-defence,” he said of Sunday’s incident.

“The regime got too close and it got burned.”

He said the provocations by Syria’s government and its allies were a potentially risky strategy.

“It doesn’t look like anyone currently intends to deliberately escalate further, but when you’ve got these little skirmishes... the risk is that you can end up in an escalation by accident.”

On Monday morning, the area where the regime and SDF fighters clashed was quiet, and the US-backed force was continuing to battle Daesh inside Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

Government forces meanwhile seized the town of Rusafa, south of Raqqa, a key stop on its path to Deir Ezzor and located near provincial oil and gas fields, the monitor said.

Syria’s war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, but has since spiralled into a complex and bloody conflict that has killed more than 320,000 people.

Syria’s rebels are now on the backfoot after regime advances with support from allies Russia and Iran.

On Sunday, Tehran for the first time fired missiles from its territory against Daesh positions in Deir Ezzor.

It said the missiles were “in retaliation” for a June 7 attack on the parliament complex and shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed 17 people and was claimed by Daesh.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also announced Monday that the next round of Syria peace talks in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana will be held on July 10.

The meeting is set to coincide with a fresh round of UN-sponsored Syria peace talks that will also begin in Geneva the same day.
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) suspends combat missions against ISIL over Syria, following Russia's threat that it would treat any aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition flying west of the Euphrates as a potential target.