MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday slammed Washington for refusing to share intelligence with Russia on Syria, accusing it of muddled thinking.
“I believe some of our partners simply have mush for brains,” Putin said, expressing some of his strongest criticism yet of Washington’s handling of the Syrian crisis. Late last month Moscow launched a bombing campaign in Syria, saying it needed to target Islamic State jihadists before they cross into Russia, which has a large Muslim population.
But Washington and its allies slammed Russia’s intervention in the conflict, saying Moscow was also targeting Western-backed moderate rebels and sought to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
“Now, we often hear that our pilots are striking the wrong targets, not IS,” Putin said at an investment forum in Moscow explaining that Russia had asked Washington to provide a list of targets. But Washington declined. “‘No, we are not ready for this’ was the answer,” Putin quoted them as saying.
“Then we thought again and asked another question: then tell us where we should not strike. No answer too,” he said, adding: “That is not a joke. I did not make this up.” “How is it possible to work together?” he asked. “I think some of our partners simply have mush for brains, they do not have a clear understanding of what really happens in the country and what goals they are seeking to achieve.”
He also took issue with a decision by a US-led coalition to parachute in ammunition to rebels in Syria, saying the weapons could end up in the wrong hands.
In televised comments at the weekend, Putin acknowledged that Russia wanted to buttress the Syrian regime, saying Moscow’s task was to “stabilise the legitimate authorities and create conditions for the search of political compromise.”
“We are not striving for some sort of leadership on Syria,” he said at Tuesday’s forum.
Meanwhile, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate called for jihadists to attack Russia over its air strikes in Syria, as rockets hit Moscow’s Damascus embassy Tuesday where demonstrators had gathered to back the intervention. Israeli artillery also targeted Syrian army posts after two rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights, the Jewish state’s military said.
The developments came a day after US-led coalition forces air-dropped ammunition to the Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC) battling jihadists near the Islamic State group’s northern stronghold of Raqa.
Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, head of Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, urged jihadists in the Caucasus to target Russians because of Moscow’s air campaign.
“If the Russian army kills the people of Syria, then kill their people. And if they kill our soldiers, then kill their soldiers. An eye for an eye,” Jolani said in an audio recording released late Monday.
He pledged that Moscow’s air war, which began on September 30, would have dire consequences.
“The war in Syria will make the Russians forget the horrors that they found in Afghanistan,” Jolani said, adding: “They will be shattered, with God’s permission, on Syria’s doorstep.”
Russia has said its raids are targeting Al-Nusra’s jihadist rival IS and other “terrorist” groups.
A US-led air coalition fighting IS in Syria has also targeted Al-Nusra several times.
Jolani urged armed opposition groups to shelve their differences until both air campaigns had been defeated.
“Delay the disputes until the demise and smashing of the Western Crusader and Russian campaign on Syrian land,” he said.
Jolani also called on armed groups to “hurl hundreds of rockets” daily at villages inhabited by the Alawite minority, the sect from which President Bashar al-Assad hails.
“When they will stop attacking our village and cities, we will stop attacking theirs.”
Jolani said he would pay “three million euros ($3.4 million) for anyone who can kill Bashar al-Assad and end his story”.
“How long must Muslims delay their rights and shed their blood for a man who loves his power?”
He said he would pay the bounty even if a member of Assad’s own family killed him.
Jolani also offered “two million euros ($2.2 million) for whoever kills Hassan Nasrallah”, leader of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement whose men have been fighting alongside Assad’s forces.
Tuesday morning’s rocket attack on Moscow’s diplomatic compound in Damascus sparked panic among some 300 demonstrators expressing their support for Moscow’s air war.
Two rockets slammed into the complex as the demonstrators waved Russian flags and pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Two rockets hit embassy territory at 10:15 am. No one was killed or wounded,” Russian news agency Interfax quoted embassy official Eldar Kurbanov as saying.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets were fired from the eastern edges of the capital, where Islamist rebels are entrenched.