By Karen DeYoung
The Obama administration is weighing the opening
of a new front in the air war against the Islamic
State in Syria, part of an offensive to push back
militants along the western portion of Syria’s
border with Turkey and create a relatively safe
zone for U.S.backed Syrian rebel forces to move
in.
Under the plan, U.S. aircraft flying from Turkey’s
Incirlik air base would target positions the
militants currently hold along the border north of
Aleppo, eastward toward the besieged town of
Kobane. Turkish special forces would move into
the area to assist targeting and help Syrian
opposition fighters consolidate their hold on the
territory.
President Obama, who has not yet approved the
proposal, was briefed on its outline at a meeting
with his senior national security advisers last
Wednesday.
The plan, which was developed over the past
several weeks during extensive meetings between
U.S. and Turkish diplomatic and military officials,
also was a subject of discussion between Vice
President Biden and Turkey’s top political leaders
during Biden’s visit to Istanbul 10 days ago.
The proposal would at least partly address Turkey’s
longstanding desire for a protected buffer zone
inside Syria along the entire 511mile border, while
providing the faltering rebel fighters with a muchneeded
boost.
In exchange, U.S. access to Incirlik for use of manned warplanes
and armed drones throughout Syria would add as many as six hours to the amount of time that strike aircraft could spend “on station,”
locating and reaching targets. Aircraft currently
striking Islamic State positions in northern and
eastern Syria fly from bases in the Persian Gulf, a
distance of about 1,000 miles.
“That access is huge,” a U.S. official said. At the
same time, having Turkish special forces on the
ground inside Syria would not only “breathe life
into the Free Syrian Army,” but also provide “more
capable folks to help with targeting” for airstrikes.
Right now, the official said, targets are pinpointed
with surveillance by unarmed aircraft flying from
Incirlik and other bases in the region, and friendly
Syrian “dudes with cellphones” on the ground. The
official, who was not authorized to discuss the
plan, described it on condition of anonymity. A
spokesman for the National Security Council
declined to comment on the proposal and last
week’s meeting with Obama.
If implemented, the plan would require
significantly more U.S. resources than are now
devoted to the fight against the Islamic State in
Syria, including more planes and more money.
Congress is debating both the funding and new
authorization for operations in Syria and Iraq that
have already been approved by the President.
Although officials said the proposal is not intended to establish a traditional nofly zone requiring constant patrols against other aircraft entering the
area — potentially up to 100 miles long and 20
miles deep inside Syria — its proponents recognize
the potential for a “slippery slope” into a far more
major operation.
Part of the administration’s risk assessment is
whether Syrian President Bashar alAssad will
continue to allow overflights of his territory
without activating Syrian air defenses, as he has
with American aircraft now striking the Islamic
State in areas largely to the east of the proposed
new front.
“Up to now, it’s been uncoordinated deconfliction,”
the U.S. official said. “It’s not as though Centcom
calls up the Syrians every morning and says, ‘Don’t
go where we’re going.’ ” The U.S. Central
Command is in charge of American military
operations in Syria and Iraq.
Administration officials watched with concern last
week as Syrian government aircraft bombed the
northcentral Syrian city of Raqqah, the center of
Islamic State operations in the country. U.S. strikes
have been targeting the militants in and around the
city since September.
U.S. attacks in the proposed new corridor
northeast of Aleppo would bring American aircraft
into far more consistent proximity to Syrian
aircraft, which regularly strike U.S.backed rebelforces in that city. Top Pentagon officials have said
that any attempt by Assad to interfere with U.S.
aircraft would bring a broad attack on Syria’s air
force and air defense system.
Officials described the new proposal, some
elements of which were reported online Monday by
the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News, as
still in the planning stages. “There is nothing
imminent, and a lot of details still to come,” the
U.S. official said.
Beyond the threat of direct conflict with Assad, the
concept is fraught with additional risks and
unknowns.
Turkish officials and retired Gen. John Allen, the
administration’s chief envoy to the U.S.led
coalition against the Islamic State, have assessed
that the Free Syrian Army can marshal sufficient
trained forces to gradually move eastward into the
zone. But the opposition’s track record is far from
encouraging. In recent weeks, rebel fighters,
including those who have already received aid and
training from the CIA, were pushed from their
strongholds in Idlib province, west of Aleppo, by
Jabhat alNusra militants allied with alQaeda.
The administration has authorized an expansion in
the CIA program for rebels fighting in the
northwest. Separately, the U.S. military is
developing a training program for opposition fighters to move into defensive positions in areas of
Syria that are already being targeted by airstrikes
against the militants.
But even if trained rebels were up for that task,
none of that area, comprising a third of the country
in northern, central and eastern Syria, has yet been
cleared of Islamic State forces. Militant fighters
surrounding Kobane appear to be holding their
own despite weeks of steady U.S. bombardment.
Many officials, particularly in the White House and
within the military, also remain distrustful of
Turkey’s desire to draw the United States into a
direct confrontation with Assad.
After months of resisting joining the U.S.led
coalition against the Islamic State, Turkey agreed
in recent weeks to allow the establishment in its
territory of a training base for Free Syrian Army
fighters. Turkey is also training about 1,300 Iraqi
Kurdish fighters, called the peshmerga, to fight
against the Islamic State.
The Turkish parliament has given President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan permission to allow Turkish forces
to enter Syria, but he has not used that authority.
Although Turkey allows unarmed U.S. surveillance
aircraft to fly from Incirlik, it has refused until now
to allow the facility to be used as a base for strike
aircraft flying missions inside Syria.
Both Biden and Erdogan described their recent Istanbul meeting as a turning point toward closer
cooperation between the NATO allies. But within
days of Biden’s departure, Erdogan last week
unleashed a broadside against what he called
“foreigners” in the West who “don’t like us.”
“Foreigners love oil, gold, diamonds, and the cheap
labor force of the Islamic world. They like the
conflicts, fights and quarrels of the Middle East,”
he said in a speech in Istanbul, according to
Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News.
Calling for unity in the Islamic world, Erdogan said
that “if we act together… It is possible to end the
bloodshed in Iraq and killing of Syrian children.”
Karen DeYoung is associate editor and senior national
security correspondent for the Washington Post.