While Syria is shifting to new management, Israel is attacking the country’s arsenals and infrastructure. On Monday, military jets struck former air defense sites and missile warehouses along the country’s western coast in the early morning hours, conflict monitors at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported afterward, describing the attacks and their secondary explosions as “the most violent round of airstrikes ever.”
The Israeli Defense Forces have allegedly carried out more than 470 airstrikes inside Syria since the Assad regime collapsed in the face of a lightning rebel advance to Damascus on December 8, according to the SOHR. Those attacks spanned “former regime forces, including airbases, radar systems, air-defence units, weapons and [ammo] warehouses,” the monitors said Monday.
The overnight attacks were heard at least as far away as Tartus, where Assad ally Russia maintains a naval base. Russia also has an airbase near the Syrian port city of Latakia. Russian troops there have been busy over the last several days packing up supplies and flying troops out of the area as the country braces for whatever comes next from the rebel alliance now running Syria from the capital city of Damascus. The U.S. commercial satellite imagery firm Maxar released imagery from the Khmeimim air base near Latakia on Friday. NBC News has some of those photos, here.
Officially, Russia is not leaving its two bases inside Syria. However, “At least one cargo plane flew out on Saturday for Libya,” and Russians are “withdrawing some heavy equipment and senior Syrian officers,” Reuters reported this weekend. “The aim at this stage is to regroup and redeploy as dictated by developments on the ground,” a Syrian army officer told the wire service Saturday.
Why it matters: “Both bases were a keystone in the Kremlin’s efforts to project power into the East Mediterranean and Africa,” the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. “Russia’s initial success in Syria became a blueprint for Russian intervention elsewhere, from the Central African Republic, where Russia’s Wagner mercenaries protected President Faustin-Archange Touadéra from rebel groups, to Sudan, Libya and Mali.”
Expert reax: If Moscow finds that it can’t stay at those two bases, “Russia will try to solidify agreements in Libya and Sudan as a partial offset in the region,” Dara Massicot of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote Friday on social media. Meanwhile, “the Russian withdrawal is picking up steam. Whether it will be full or partial is unclear so far.”
According to Syria’s interim leader, the country’s “war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations,” Ahmed al-Shara said in an interview Saturday. “The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction,” he added.
Update: Syria’s old leader, dictator Bashar al-Assad, claims the Russians evacuated him early on December 8, seemingly against his wishes. The Associated Press reported his comments Monday, which were apparently delivered in a statement on Facebook.
Update: A U.S. carrier strike group arrived in the Middle East region this weekend, officials from Central Command announced Sunday. The Harry S. Truman had departed its home port in Norfolk, Va., in late September, which suggests the transit took nearly three months.
Developing: Central Israel was on high alert Monday after a series of projectiles were launched at the country from Yemen, the IDF said on social media. In the past, U.S. troops in the region have helped shoot down objects the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist group in Yemen launched into Israel; the Truman Strike Group could assist in a similar fashion in the weeks ahead.
Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1864, the U.S. Army routed and destroyed the treasonous rebel Army of Tennessee in the two-day Battle of Nashville.
Pacific region
New: 38 U.S.-made Abrams tanks were delivered to Taiwan on Sunday. “The vehicles are the first batch of 108 tanks and other items that then-US president Donald Trump announced for Taiwan in 2019,” the Taipei Times reported Monday.
Officially, the tanks are referred to as M1A2T variants, and 42 more are expected in 2025, while 28 others are slated for 2026 delivery, Focus Taiwan reports. These T-variants “lack the depleted uranium armour used by the U.S. Army, with FMS export armour used in its stead,” Military Watch magazine reports. They also “lack the Israeli Trophy Active Protection System which is being integrated onto modern variants of the Abrams tank both for domestic use and for export, meaning they cannot intercept incoming projectiles as advanced tanks from the Chinese mainland are able to.”
Will those Abrams help defend against a Chinese invasion? Perhaps, but there are likely a few other and possibly better weapons Taiwan could request, experts told us this summer. “This is a mountainous terrain,” Dmitri Alperovitch said of Taiwan’s geography. “This is not the plains of Ukraine; you’re not going to have tank battles.” His advice? “You need 1000s of anti ship missiles, you need 1000s of mines. You need the ability to deploy them rapidly, you need to defend your airspace.” (Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army major general had similar thoughts.)
Chinese officials arrive in Taipei for rare visit. The delegation, led by a deputy mayor of Shanghai, were visiting as part of an annual city-to-city forum “happening at a time of heightened Taiwan-China military and political tension,” Reuters reported Monday from Taipei.
ICYMI: Last week, China launched what Taiwanese officials called the largest Chinese naval deployment in nearly 30 years. But there were various puzzling things about it, the Financial Times reported behind a paywall Saturday.
A U.S. warship makes a port call in Cambodia, a Chinese ally, for the first time in eight years, AP reports. It’s “part of a wider U.S. effort to woo Phnom Penh from China’s ambit,” D Brief-er Bradley Peniston reported last week from Vientiane, Laos. During a November visit, Lloyd Austin and his Cambodian counterpart also settled plans for a December visit by Adm. Samuel Paparo, who leads U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and discussed trust-building. Read that, here.
Around the Defense Department
Are AI defense firms about to eat the Pentagon? In an unprecedented wave of collaboration, leading artificial-intelligence companies are teaming up—sometimes with rivals—to serve a Pentagon and Congress determined to put AI to military use. Their growing alignment may herald an era in which software firms seize the influence now held by old-line defense contractors, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Sunday.
“There’s an old saying that software eats the world,” Byron Callan, managing director at Capital Alpha Partners, told Investors Business Daily on Wednesday. “It’s going to eat the military too.” Read on, here.
Army colonel at Joint Base Lewis-McChord found guilty of sexual harassment. NYT: “The conviction is considered one of the first of its kind since Congress required the military to change how its legal system addresses sexual assault and harassment. in trial seen as a milestone.” More, here.
Also: One person was killed on Fort Eisenhower on Saturday. The Georgia base was locked down about 7:50 a.m. A suspect was arrested later that day in Meriwether County, three hours’ drive across the state. Officials have not yet publicly identified the victim or the shooting suspect, but said neither was an active-duty soldier.
Etc.
Lastly today: “Has World War III Already Begun? An axis of autocracies led by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea is challenging the democratic world order.” That’s the headline and deck from Saturday’s report by veteran WSJ correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov.
Trofimov argues that the “mild” response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea led Vladimir Putin to conclude that the time had come to team up with fellow strongmen. “The following year, Russia and Iran joined hands in Syria to rescue the Assad regime from a looming collapse. Cut off from some Western technologies, Russia also became increasingly dependent on China. Bonds among the four countries were cemented by the 2022 invasion of Ukraine—a war that Russia is fighting with indispensable Chinese support and weapons from North Korea and Iran.” Read on, here.
Related reading:
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