Situation Report: Possible deal between the U.S. and Turkey on Syria; al Shabab holding out; new Syrians being trained by U.S. forces; Russian missile mishaps; and lots more

By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley

Just don’t call it a ‘no-fly zone.’ Reports emerged Sunday night that as part of the deal between Turkey and the U.S to allow American aircraft to use Turkish air bases to hit the Islamic State in Syria, the two countries will establish a safe zone in northern Syria.

Part of the deal involves pushing the Islamic State out of a corridor along the Euphrates River near Aleppo, which would then fall under the control of the ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition, with coalition air power flying in support. But the plan would also bring American warplanes close to Syrian government bases and air defenses, which gives rise to a whole new set of problems. It would, however, help out the rebel groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, something that Washington has struggled to endorse.

While this all sounds pretty much how a traditional no-fly zone works, U.S. officials say not so fast. An official no-fly zone would require a vote by the U.N Security Council, where Russia and China would almost certainly block it.

East Africa in the news. President Barack Obama landed in Ethiopia on Monday after a two-day stop in Kenya that, given the continuing violence that the al Shabab jihadist group continues to inflict on Kenya and Somalia, included some talk about security. And when the United States of America talks security, there’s usually a big check nearby, ready to be delivered.

Washington’s Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund, launched last year, has pledged $465 million in new training and equipment programs to partners in Africa, and the White House issued a statement early Monday morning announcing that the president will host a summit on the margins of the upcoming U.N. General Assembly to push for African countries to step up their participation in upcoming peacekeeping missions.

Peacekeepers looking for peace to keep. By far the largest of those peacekeeping initiatives is the massive African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) effort, which has been battling al Shabab since 2007. That 22,000-strong international force has taken some lumps over the past eight years however, losing an estimated 3,000 soldiers in Somalia, FPs Ty McCormick writes. One the ground with Burundian troops in the Somali countryside, McCormick captures the seesaw battle between the peacekeepers and the well-armed Shabab, which has been using hit and run attacks and roadside bombs.

In a line that should sound familiar to anyone who has paid attention to the recent American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, McCormick writes that in the face of superior AMISOM firepower, Shabab fighters have learned to retreat in order to launch small attacks “on AMISOM’s supply lines, ambushing convoys and planting improvised explosive devices. Al-Shabab’s embrace of asymmetric warfare has also enabled it to regroup in between AMISOM offensives.”

Expanding air war? At the same time, FPs Paul McLeary writes, the U.S. appears to have launched a new round of airstrikes against Shabab. Defense Department officials are keeping most details of the (manned? unmanned?) strikes under wraps, but from what we’ve learned, there looks to be a real shift from the usual pinprick attacks that have strictly focused on the jihadis’ leaders to a more widespread assault on the group’s formations. In short, when they mass, they get hit. A July 14 U.S. airstrike in Somalia — which was coordinated with a Kenyan artillery barrage, killed more than 50 militants who were preparing to attack an AMISOM unit.

Morning, all! The Situation Report is at it early again this week, and still looking for one of those “quiet” Washington summers we had heard so much about, but haven’t managed to find. We’re always on the lookout for anything noteworthy or ahead of the news cycle to flag, so please pass any items along to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or send a shout or DM on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Race for the White House

The contenders have all lined up to try and capture their party’s nomination for president in 2016, and now we’re starting to hear all about their big ideas on foreign policy and military affairs. Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich recently jumped into the race, and now he’s taking to the hustings to promise that if elected, he’d meet the Islamic State head-on. Speaking on Meet the Press on Sunday, Kasich slammed President Barack Obama’s strategy in Iraq and Syria, while coming out as a surprising critic of air power. “You’ve got the air power, but you can’t solve anything just with air power,” he said. If elected, the promised that “I would be part of a coalition and I would take them down.” Granted, it’s not much to go on, but that strategy doesn’t sound a whole lot different from the current one being pursued by the Obama administration, considering that since the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State began last August, a coalition of ten countries have bombed sites and equipment used by the jihadi group across Iraq and Syria.

Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad broadcast a speech in which he publicly acknowledged that the regime’s war against rebels and jihadists is not going well. Assad admitted that Syrian forces have suffered a number of battlefield setbacks of lately, blaming a “shortage of manpower.” The admission comes as the Syrian regime tries to increase recruitment in the face of large scale desertion, defection and draft-dodging within the country’s armed forces.

There’s a new batch of Syrian “moderate” rebels being trained by U.S. forces, just don’t ask where they are, how they’re being trained, or how many are in the training pipeline. On Friday, U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. Pat Ryder told reporters that a new class of fighters is now being trained, and will soon join the 60 fighters that American forces have already put through their course of instruction. While we don’t know how many trainees are in the system now, the administration’s $500 million program to train 3,000 fighters to push back against the Islamic State by the end of the year — and 15,000 over three years — looks like a stretch.

Iraq

After much wrangling over the relative importance of taking the city back from Islamic State forces, Iraq’s siege of Ramadi has begun. At the moment, Iraqi forces have focused on taking back the University of Anbar campus in the city with help from U.S. airpower. Reuters reports that an Anbar provincial council member said that the operation to take back the university was taking place without help from Iraq’s Shia militias.

Iraqi forces took a delivery of 30 U.S. mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) at Camp Taiji. The vehicles, which a U.S. Central Command official told SitRep cost the U.S. taxpayer $16.5 million, were developed during Operation Iraqi Freedom to mitigate the lethality of improvised explosive devices. The vehicles were not delivered as part of the $1.6 billion Iraq Train and Equip Fund, the official added, which Congress signed off on last year.

Russia

The Kremlin has published Russia’s new naval doctrine and — no surprises here — it places NATO as the top threat to Russian interests and calls for increased investment for naval forces in the Black Sea, Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Citing NATO’s allegedly “inadmissible” positioning of forces closer to Russia, the document calls for Russia to capitalize on its recent annexation of Crimea with new naval infrastructure there.

Sunday was Russia’s annual Navy Day holiday, and as part of the celebrations, it commissioned a new spy ship, the Yuri Ivanov, in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea — a ship intended to spy on US sea-based missile defense ships. But in newly-annexed Crimea, this year’s festivities hit a sour note when a Russian ship in a naval parade flubbed a celebratory missile launch, which occurred right in front of hundreds of spectators who are lucky to be alive.

Israel

Israel has donated 16 of its retired and refurbished AH-1E/F Cobra attack helicopters to Jordan for use in the Hashemite Kingdom in its war against Islamic State. Israel had been looking previously to unload some of the Cobras it retired in 2013, and had planned on selling some of the choppers to Nigeria for its use against Boko Haram, but the U.S. blocked the sale over human rights concerns. For Jordan, however, the Washington greenlit the Cobra donation as part of a larger effort to bolster Arab allies in the wake of the Islamic State’s rise.

Business of Defense

The Defense News ‘Top 100’ list of the biggest global defense firms is out and Lockheed Martin has maintained its top slot once again with defense revenues of over $40 billion last year. Despite a relative wind down in spending in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, analysts said that U.S. defense firms have weathered the cuts without too much trouble. Russian defense firms also moved up within the Top 100 list, despite sanctions and an economic downturn at home, thanks to increased domestic defense spending and an export customer base of non-western countries.

Lebanon
In a speech broadcast to supporters in Lebanon this weekend, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah told his audience that the recent U.S. nuclear accord with Iran won’t change the terrorist group’s relationship with its patrons in Tehran or the group’s attitude toward the U.S. Nasrallah reassured viewers that, despite the relative thaw in U.S.-Iran relations, the Islamic Republic did not “sell its allies down the river” during the negotiations and that “the United States remains the ‘Great Satan’, both before and after the nuclear accord”