CONFIRMED: US sharply cuts air operations in Syria fearing Russian missiles
ALEXANDER MERCOURIS
TheDuran.com
4/12/2017
US sharply reduces air operations in Syria because of presence of Russian missiles after Moscow closes hotline.
The media is barely reporting the fact but the immediate effect of the US missiles strike on Syria’s Sharyat air base has been to reduce US air force flights over Syria as the US worries about Moscow’s reaction.
That this is so is confirmed by the New York Times which – presumably because its anti-Trump campaign overrides all other issues – has actually been doing some proper reporting about the Syrian conflict following the US missile strike.
This is all set out by New York Times in the following article, which says the following:
The American-led task force that is battling the Islamic State has sharply reduced airstrikes against the militants in Syria as commanders assess whether Syrian government forces or their Russian allies plan to respond to the United States’ cruise missile strike on a Syrian airfield this past week, American officials said.
The precautionary move, revealed in statistics made public by the command on Saturday, was taken as Russian officials have threatened to suspend the communication line the American and Russian militaries use to notify each other about air operations in Syria.
So far, the Russian military does not appear to have taken any threatening actions, such as directing its battlefield radar or air defense systems to confront the Americans, or carrying out aggressive actions in the skies, United States officials said.
But officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning said the commanders needed time to determine whether the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the Russian military would treat the American cruise missile strike as a one-time operation that they would not respond to militarily. As a precaution, the Pentagon is flying patrols in Syrian skies with F-22 jets, the Air Force’s most advanced air-to-air fighter……
The Rest…HERE
