Complexity of anti-terror approaches and media rhetoric
October 21, 2015, 7:49 am

On September 30, 2015 Russia launched its first airstrikes in Syria against terrorist targets as it officially claims- among which are the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat an-Nusra – the terrorist organizations which are blacklisted in Russia – as well as against other minor terror groups. The move was made two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly and his meeting with the U.S. President Barack Obama.

Many were seemingly ‘caught by surprise’ with this move. Although, to be fair, it was not that unexpected if one was paying attention to the preceding events and preparations made by Moscow, including extremely active diplomatic consultations with Middle Eastern and Western leaders and diplomats. As the Syrian ambassador to Russia stated recently, preparations for a Russian air campaign in Syria have been under way since the spring of 2015.

Russian and US military experts held “a professional and constructive discussion of the flight safety in air missions over Syria during a conference call on Wednesday”, the Russian Defense Ministry said [Image: Defense Ministry of Russia]

To put it simply two main narratives clashed: a Russian one, predominantly supportive of the airstrikes (although some media outlets did question the nature and the goals of such a move and also criticized this decision), and a Western one, predominantly of the negative and condemning nature, also with minor exclusions.

Major concerns and allegations

Russian air campaign in Syria has already become somewhat of a milestone for the Russian Ministry of Defense in terms of bombarding media coverage. The Ministry started to tweet and post extensive reports on Facebook on a daily basis providing detailed information about the airstrikes and backing them with video footage of the operations.

More interestingly, the Russian Defense Ministry started to release these reports and conduct press-briefings in English in a bid to provide easy-to-access source for the international media.

It is highly unlikely though that this is helping in dispelling Western doubts on the targets of the airstrikes and their aftermaths.

Main concerns of the Western media (as well as governments) are about real targets of the Russian airstrikes and their precision in terms of avoiding hitting civilians.

The main narrative created and promoted by the Western media now reads broadly on the lines of: “the main goal of Russian campaign in Syria is to prop-up Assad regime, to crash the opposition and not really to fight the terror of the Islamic State”.

Most media posts are blatant in their usage of a substantial amount of unverified reports in trying to prove that Russia targets mainly ‘moderate’ rebels who receive ammunition from the U.S.

The term ‘moderate’ rebels which is used by Western media to describe mainly the Free Syrian Army and those rebels who are fighting against ISIS and Assad and receiving U.S. arms, is, and should be, highly questionable in nature.

That is the crux of the points of departure between Russia and the United States on the question of Syria’s political future.

The various reports that Free Syrian Army fighters and ‘moderate’ rebels are joining either ISIS or Jabhat an-Nusra terrorist groups is challenging the “moderate rebel” claim of Washington.

So this is where we are at now- Washington accuses Russia of targeting ‘moderate’ rebels which are trained and equipped by the US. Moscow, in turn, asks the White House to share contacts of those moderate rebels to coordinate with them in fighting ISIS and other terrorist groups.

In refusing to share such information, Washington acknowledges officially that their train-and-equip program has totally failed and halts it, while simultaneously offering support and weapons to a newly established Democratic Forces of Syria.

Mapping terrorists, understanding moderates

Since the airstrikes began, the Russian Ministry of Defense had made an error in using the blanket term ISIS to describe its targets.

In not distinguishing between different terrorist groups, Moscow’s actions fueled concerns in the West and speculative pieces in the media.

However the maps that were released by Russian media outlets (using Russian Defense Ministry reports as a source) distinguished the presence of the two major terrorist groups in Syria – Jabhat an-Nusra and ISIS, also indicating Kurds and Free Syrian Army (FSA)-held areas.

By the end of last week the Russian Defense Ministry has changed its language starting to distinguish between different terror groups in its reports indicating that among the targets were Jaysh al-Fatah, Jabhat an-Nusra and Faylak Omar  – in a noteworthy development. If this would have been done since the beginning of the airstrikes, a good portion of ‘concerns’ about the targets of Russian airstrikes could possible have been avoided.

On the other hand, for the first weeks of the Russian airstrikes major U.S. media outlets, such as Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post, used Syrian maps where only ISIS-held areas were depicted along with Syrian official forces, Kurds and rebels/FSA. Such simplification totally avoided the mentioning of other terrorist groups such as the notorious Jabhat an-Nusra, Jaysh al-Fatah and others.

Such a narrative easily created a simplified vision of the conflict where ISIS is the only terrorist force and the term ‘rebels’ or FSA describe all moderates.

Moreover, shortly after the first Russian airstrikes on Sept. 30, all major media in the Western world suddenly started to state that Russians were bombing ‘moderates’. These did not exist a day ago because the American leadership has acknowledged much before the Russian campaign in Syria that moderates no longer exist there.

Those very media outlets had reported on this. Here is just one example: David Petraeus, former CIA Director acknowledged that the ‘moderates’ had collapsed long ago.

With the Russian strikes, the media ‘brought those moderates back to life’.

Meanwhile, the main argument of the Kremlin is that by coordinating with Iran, Iraq and the Syrian government as well as the Syrian Arab Army, Russia has at its disposal every single source of information (starting with electronic and satellite reconnaissance tools ending with a network of agents on the ground) to verify any target.

To avoid further strife, Russia reasserts its invites to western leaders to join in its anti-terror fight in Syria or to exchange targets which will allow to coordinate and avoid any misunderstanding.

Washington has refused such offers till now.

It is too early to say whether the West is right in its rhetoric and approach to the Russian campaign or whether the Kremlin will really be able to reach its announced goals – to defeat the ISIS and stabilize Syria.

Anyways only time, coupled with actions on military and diplomatic tracks will show us eventually who was right and who was wrong. But as usually happens, the truth might lie somewhere in the middle.