Entangled in Syria
WES BRYANT
June 18, 2017
A Russian-made Su-22 fighter jet maneuvers under the heads-up display of an American F/A-18 Super Hornet in the skies over Syria. The Hornet pilot pulls the trigger and launches an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile toward the Syrian-piloted jet.1
Anti-missile chaff and flares thrust out from the Syrian jet. The American air-to-air missile blasts just past the Su-22 fuselage, missing by a few feet. The Syrian pilot’s maneuvers worked. Or, maybe he had just driven his jet wherever he could—erratically pulling out all stops knowing that a U.S. fighter pilot was on his tail and targeting him.
The Hornet pilot re-maneuvers to lock up the Syrian a second time, all the while coolly narrating the status of his dogfight over the radio to his wingman. His voice is muffled under the constraints of his oxygen mask and further strained by the tension of the moment and the extreme focus required to control his jet’s combat aerial maneuvers.
Within less than a minute, he has the Syrian fighter jet locked again. The targeting icon on his heads-up display blinks rapidly. Notifications sound that the second missile is within acceptable targeting parameters to launch.
The missile seems to wind its way to the target. Suddenly, a huge black blast appears in the screen where the Su-22 had just moments before been in the sky.
A direct hit.
• • •
In summer of 2017, I was the lead Special Tactics JTAC for the Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan when the shoot-down over Syria took place. I watched our pilot’s strike recording a few days afterward with my pilot friend and colleague—Major Greg Balzhiser (call sign “Smack”). Smack was an incredible F-16 fighter pilot and weapons officer who’d flown for my task force two years previous supporting the Syria mission, and he was now leading the squadron of F-16s supporting our mission in Afghanistan.
It was a pretty surreal video to watch. It was the first air-to-air kill accomplished by the U.S. military in eighteen years, since an American F-16 had shot down a Russian-made MiG-29 over the skies of Yugoslavia during Operation Allied Force.2
But a standoff in the skies over Syria had been a long time coming.
Back on April 6, President Trump had authorized the launch of fifty-nine naval Tomahawk cruise missiles against a Syrian air base, constituting the first official attack by the U.S. against the Syrian regime.3 The cruise missiles targeted Syria’s Shayrat military airfield, believed to be the base from which the Syrian military had launched a chemical weapons attack against civilians in the western city of Idlib two days prior. The chemical attack had reportedly killed eighty-six Syrians, to include dozens of children.4 President Trump ordered the strike utilizing his executive power, as a show of force to the Assad regime that the U.S. wouldn’t tolerate any further chemical weapons attacks.
Then from mid-May to early June, our special operations forces in Syria coordinated at least three separate airstrikes against pro-Assad Syrian coalition forces that had pushed beyond the U.S.-demanded “de-escalation zone” in southeast Syria.5 Iranian-backed militias, loyal to the Syrian regime, had advanced toward the Tri-Border city of Al Tanf which was by then fully occupied by our partner Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Adding even more urgency, we had U.S. special operations teams on the ground with the SDF.
We’d made it abundantly clear to both Russia and Syria that they were not to approach our ground forces. But they and the Iranians who backed them viewed our SDF as rebel forces. They disregarded our warnings and continued to advance. The pro-Assad militia force came within seventeen miles of our SDF in Al Tanf and continued closing when our special operations commanders finally gave the order to strike.
A friend and colleague of mine, a senior Combat Controller named Dave, was the lead JTAC at the Syria task force while I was the lead in Afghanistan. Dave controlled the strikes against the pro-Assad militia forces and told me about it afterwards during a phone call. I can’t say I wasn’t incredibly jealous when I found out that he got to deliver the hate to Assad’s henchmen! But I was glad for it, and glad for Dave’s accomplishment.
Fast-forward again to mid-June 2017. In the minutes leading up to the U.S.-Syria dogfight, armored Syrian ground forces had again been advancing on our SDF. Senior U.S. military officials tried to use the “de-confliction hotline” that had since been established between U.S. and Russian military channels to avoid just such a scenario—but they got no response. Senior command then quickly authorized the task force to act in defense of the SDF.
The task force JTAC first directed a set of coalition fighter jets to strafe between the frontlines of the SDF and the Syrian forces as a warning to make U.S. intent known. That halted the advance of the Syrian ground forces. Shortly thereafter, however, the Su-22 was observed maneuvering in the airspace over our SDF and posturing as if targeting for an airstrike. Then it launched a bomb that impacted close by the SDF positions.
And the rest is history—at least, that Syrian fighter pilot is.
• • •
Really, the situation in Syria had devolved into exactly the mess we had foreseen back in 2015 when talk first began about increasing U.S. ground involvement. The coalition strikes against pro-regime forces through May and June 2017, pinnacling with the U.S. shoot-down of a Syrian fighter jet in June, further intensified tensions between the U.S. and the Syrian regime, Russia, and Iran.6 That added to the danger, because by then we had special operations teams on the ground in Syria running various opposition forces against ISIS, along with a host of other U.S. forces providing advisement and support.
In February 2018, the brooding situation on the Syrian battlefield came to a head. Near the city of Deir el-Zour in eastern Syria on the south side of the Euphrates, a pro-regime militia estimated at 500 troops advanced on a tiny U.S. special operations outpost with tanks and armored vehicles. The pro-Assad militia attacked the U.S. team with tank fire and artillery and mortar rounds. For the next four hours, the JTACs on the ground crushed the battalion-sized force with U.S. artillery and airstrikes—killing an estimated 200-300 pro-Syrian regime fighters and thankfully ensuring not a single U.S. casualty.7 Intelligence later revealed that the militia force was made up of Syrian militia and Russian contract mercenaries; even though the Russian military denied involvement.
Yes, we’ve made progress against ISIS in Syria. The U.S. and its coalition have taken plenty of land from the caliphate. In northeast Syria we liberated Kobane and moved on to take back Jarabulus and Manbij—key ISIS strongholds that once housed deeply embedded ISIS command and control networks. The coalition was successful in releasing ISIS’ stranglehold in northern Syria as well, even liberating the symbolic city of Dabiq in 2016.8 And we mounted a counterassault on Ar Raqqa—ISIS’ self-proclaimed capital that sits in the heart of Syria—and liberated it in October 2017.9
But to this day it is still political and military pandemonium on the ground and in the skies of Syria. Nearly every entity is at odds with one another as our warfighters wrangle dozens of separate military and militia forces—forces that regularly fight with one another and have wholly conflicting interests. The Iranian Quds Force and the Russian military are sole agents of the regime and relentlessly attack our surrogate forces. And our small footprint of U.S. troops is still under constant threat from Iranian, Russian, and Syrian ground and air presence, and has to balance mission objectives with the ever-complex task of avoiding direct or indirect involvement in the Syrian Civil War.
We’re also forced to work with the Turks, who have their own objectives. In fact, the Turks have attacked their longtime enemy the Kurds so often that we named the “SDF” largely to dissuade them from assaulting Kurd forces. (Dubbed an “Arab coalition” of anti-ISIS forces, in actuality the SDF are comprised mostly of Kurdish YPG forces.) This was not lost on the Turks for long, though. As of late 2018, the Turks have been openly attacking our SDF, further complicating the mission in Syria.10
President Trump’s posture toward Syria has proven to be no better than his predecessor, President Obama. In April 2018, Trump stated his determination to withdraw U.S. troop presence from Syria—contradicting long-standing messaging from the State Department, the Pentagon and his own past assertions. 11 Yet only days later he ordered a second round of retaliatory strikes against Syrian President al-Assad in response to another reported chemical attack by the regime, then backtracked on his initial statement and signaled a more sustained troop presence after all. Yet, he has still failed to deliver any semblance of a long-term plan, strategy, or over-arching intent for the mission in Syria.12
Then in December 2018, after a phone call with Turkey’s President Erdogan, President Trump abruptly announced that all U.S. troops would soon depart Syria—and claimed that ISIS had been defeated. It was a proclamation so unforewarned and audacious that it finally prompted esteemed Secretary of Defense James Mattis to submit his letter of resignation, in a historic and striking outplaying of political melodrama.13
In reality, ISIS as a caliphate has been beaten, but as a terrorist organization is by no means fully defeated.
1 Michael R. Gordon and Thomas Erdbrink, “U.S. Fighter Jet Shoots Down Syrian Warplane,” The New York Times, June 18, 2017, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/18/world/middleeast/iran-syria-missile-launch-islamic-state.html.
2 Eric Schmitt, “CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: THE AIR WAR; Nighttime Training and Awacs Capitalize on MIG’s Weak Spots,” The New York Times, March 27, 1999, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/27/world/conflict-balkans-air-war-nighttime-training-awacs-capitalize-mig-s-weak-spots.html.
3 Everett Rosenfeld, “Trump launches attack on Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles,” CNBC, April 6, 2017, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/06/us-military-has-launched-more-50-than-missiles-aimed-at-syria-nbc-news.html.
4 Kareem Khadder et al., “Suspected gas attack in Syria reportedly kills dozens,” CNN, April 7, 2017, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/04/middleeast/idlib-syria-attack/index.html.
5 Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “U.S. conducts new strikes on pro-Syrian-government forces threatening U.S. Special Operations base,” The Washington Post, June 6, 2017, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/06/u-s-conducts-new-strikes-on-pro-syrian-government-forces-threatening-u-s-special-operations-base/?utm_term=.3cf8b1710c2f.
6 Luis Martinez and Katherine Faulders, “White House: US wants to ‘de-escalate’ Syria situation as Russia warns it will treat jets as targets,” ABC News, June 19, 2017, accessed April 24, 2018, https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-shoots-syrian-fighter-jet-syria/story?id=48119895.
7 Eric Shmitt, Ivan Nechepurenko, and CJ Chivers, “The truth about the brutal four-hour battle between Russian mercenaries and US commandos in Syria,” The Independent, May 26, 2018, accessed January 29, 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/battle-syria-us-russian-mercenaries-commandos-islamic-state-a8370781.html.
8 “ISIS suffers huge symbolic loss in Dabiq, Syria, to Turkey-backed rebels,” CBS News, October 16, 2016, accessed January 31, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/isis-suffers-huge-symbolic-loss-dabiq-syria-turkey-backed-rebels/
9 Hilary Clarke et al., “ISIS defeated in Raqqa as ‘major military operations’ declared over,” CNN, October 18, 2017, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/17/middleeast/raqqa-isis-syria/index.html.
10 Ryan Browne, “Key US allies ‘temporarily’ halt campaign against ISIS in Syria following clashes with Turkey,” CNN, October 31, 2018, accessed November 1, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/politics/sdf-halt-syria-isis-turkey/index.html.
11 Karen DeYoung and Shane Harris, “Trump instructs military to begin planning for withdrawal from Syria,” The Washington Post, April 4, 2018, accessed June 22, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-instructs-military-to-begin-planning-for-withdrawal-from-syria/2018/04/04/1039f420-3811-11e8-8fd2-49fe3c675a89_story.html?utm_term=.d06e883a4a78.
12 “Trump announces ‘precision’ strike on Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities Friday,” CBS News, April 14 2018, accessed June 22 2018, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/strike-on-syria-trump-us-led-britian-france-bombing-missiles-trump-us-live-stream-2018-04-14/.
13 Grace Segers, “James Mattis resigns as defense secretary,” CBS News, December 20, 2018, accessed January 29, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-mattis-resigns-as-defense-secretary-today-12-20-2018/.