It’s hard to imagine a coalition of nations including Canada and the United States cooperating in any way with Russia right now, but that may be exactly what ends up happening in the skies above Syria, according to one retired colonel.
In an interview with The West Block‘s Tom Clark, former strategic adviser to the Chief of Defence Staff George Petrolekas explained that once the initial surprise of Russia’s bombing campaign over Syria wears off, the group of nations fighting ISIS might want to consider if Vladimir Putin’s forces could somehow be useful. Namely, Petrolekas said, the Russians seem to be fighting to avoid a power vacuum should the regime of current Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fall — a vacuum that could easily be filled by something even worse.
“The groups that would be best positioned to take advantage of an Assad fall would be ISIS, who would able to move west, or parts of the anti-Assad opposition which are anything but moderate, like the al-Nusra Front.”
Recent reports out of Moscow claim that the Russian Air Force completed more than two dozen bombing missions in Syria within just two days last week. While Russia claims that those strikes have been largely against ISIS, some have targeted other insurgent groups fighting against al-Assad, who stands accused of war crimes.
READ MORE: France tells Putin that Russia must confine airstrikes in Syria to IS targets
For now, Petrolekas said, there is probably very little danger of Canadian pilots encountering Russian ones in the skies, leading to one of the two groups opening fire on the other.
“From what we’ve seen so far, the Russians are primarily flying in the western part of Syria … helping some anti-Assad forces, but also the western part of ISIS, whereas we generally tend to fly missions in the eastern part of Syria and the northeastern part of Syria,” he explained.
“So I really don’t think there’s a risk of any kind of accidental engagement.”
Comments