Israelis Worry Beijing Will Increase Syrian Presence

TEL AVIV: There are signs that China may be moving to take advantage of the US withdrawal from Syria as part of a larger effort to expand its footprint in the Gulf and Middle East, Israeli sources fret.

Beijing for some time has had a toe in Syria — politically aligning with Russia in efforts at the UN to shield Bashar al-Assad’s regime and counter Western influence; voicing willingness to take part in the country’s post-civil war reconstruction; and providing small amounts of humanitarian aid.

One Israeli source asserted that Beijing’s actions are at least in part a cover for its wider Middle Eastern ambitions. “It is obvious that the main target is to have military foothold in Syria,” one source said. “The US is aware of the Chinese plan but so far has not done anything to stop it.”

Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of Central Command, during a visit to the Gulf states told reporters that the Middle East, writ large, “is an area of intense competition between the great powers. And I think that as we adjust our posture in the region, Russia and China will be looking very closely to see if a vacuum opens that they can exploit,” Al Jazeera reported today.

McKenzie noted that weapons sales are a lever both Moscow and Beijing could use to expand their influence in Syria and the wider region, according to the report. (Both Moscow and Beijing have provided weapons to Iraq, for example.) He noted that Russia has a history of offering air defense systems and other weapons to all comers; and China has a long-term goal to expand its economic power and ultimately establish military bases in the region.

The issue of Chinese intentions in Syria, however, is a subject of intense debate among experts. For example, a recent report by the Operations & Policy Center, a Syrian research organization based in Turkey, argued that Beijing is unlikely to wade far into Syria because the country’s instability is only growing. While Beijing sees the Assad regime as a point of stability in countering the growth of Islamic terrorists, it sees little economic interest in pouring yen into a country that by every measure is falling apart, argue Samy Akil and Karam Shaar in “The Red Dragon in the Land of Jasmine: An Overview of China’s Role in the Syrian Conflict.”  

As for Russia, the Defense Intelligence Agency believes Russia is waging a campaign of harassment against US and Western forces in Syria with an “ultimate goal” of pushing the US out of Syria, according to a May 8 report to Congress by the Pentagon’s Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve. An Israeli defense source sad that the Russians are “moving slow but with a plan.”

Moscow has increased the number of its military personnel in Syria during the first part of this year, the quarterly IG report said. And last week, Russian troops blocked a US military convoy in northeast Syria that they claimed was violating the deconfliction arrangements in place — arrangements that the IG report say Russia itself routinely violates, although generally without threatening Western forces.

A spokesperson for the Russian Defense Ministry’s Syria reconciliation center said six American MRAP-type armored vehicles drove “along an uncoordinated route and without prior notice” in the Kurdish-held province of Hasakah, reported the Moscow Times.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the confrontation, with spokeswoman Jessica McNulty telling the Russian state-run media DoD “has nothing to give you on the request.”

The US has been keeping a very low profile military presence in Syria for years, based on what Israeli sources say is an assumption that ISIS in Syria is very limited in its capability to operate against US interests. Israeli experts say that this assumption is wrong, and the fact is that ISIS continues to operate in Syria and plan terror attacks against Western targets.

Mordechai Keidar, one of Israel’s leading experts on Middle East issues, told Breaking Defense that the Americans refrain from talking about their military force in Syria because it “has a mission to protect some American intelligence assets in Syria.”

He added that the Russians consider themselves as the “owners of Syria” and don’t want any American forces at all in the country.

“The American force in Syria may have another mission — [former President] Trump wanted to disrupt the Iranian plan to create a passage from their country to the Mediterranean. I don’t know if this is on the mission list of the US today, but that may be another reason for the American presence.”

President Bashar al-Assad’s two main backers, Iran and Russia, have been competing for influence and the spoils of war,” according to a report in the Washington Post.

Further, there have been recent reports that Iranian militias have begun adopting a new method to protect their military arsenal, missiles, and the supply of illegal drugs (their main source of income) from any air strike, whether Israeli or otherwise.

Al-Arabiya TV reported that “Iranian forces and its affiliated militias have begun transferring large quantities of weapons to new warehouses near the al-Mayadin archeological site in Deir a-Zor district, and storing them in canals and concrete rooms” using trucks disguised as vegetable and fruit transports.

The report stated that Iran relies on the Iraqi Al-Khashd al-Shabi militia that supplies weapons to Syria, and the delivery process is usually carried out at the border (Syria-Iraq) or through a meeting between the Al-Hashad militia and the receiving militia at points within the Iraqi territories near the border.