Ground troops loyal to Bashar al-Assad have launched a major offensive in central Syria backed by Russian airstrikes in an escalation in Moscow’s week-long campaign, which has so far been restricted to bombing runs to soften up rebel positions near major loyalist strongholds.
Russian warships also fired missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea for the first time. The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said four warships launched 26 rockets at Islamic State targets. The missiles would have passed over Iran and Iraq to reach their targets, covering what Shoigu described as a distance of almost 900 miles.
Syrian activists said Russian fighter jets bombed a series of towns held by the opposition in the countryside of Hama, in concert with a push by regime troops and armoured vehicles and the deployment of Russian helicopters, in what was described as the fiercest combat in months.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group with wide contacts inside Syria, said Russian fighter jets had launched at least 37 strikes on Wednesday. The SOHR said the Russians bombed targets in the province of Idlib, most of which is held by a coalition of rebels known as Jaysh al-Fateh, which includes the al-Qaida wing in Syria.
The Syrian push on the ground is the first time President Assad’s forces have coordinated with the Russian airforce in an attempt to seize lost territory from opposition forces, ushering in some of the fiercest fighting in months in the civil war, which has now lasted four and a half years and killed more than a quarter of a million people.
The assault mirrors the US strategy in northern Syria, where coalition planes bombed Isis positions to pave the way for their allies on the ground to advance against the militants. It also poses the question of how much territory the regime’s army, exhausted and depleted by the conflict, can seize from the rebels.
Most of the fighting appeared to be concentrated in Hama, a central province with a majority Sunni capital that has remained in the hands of the regime since the start of the war. It is key to Assad’s strategy of cementing control over major population centres in a strip of territory from Latakia in the north, through to Homs, Hama and Damascus.
Rebels recently attempted to wrest control of the strategic al-Ghab plain in Hama’s countryside, drawing closer to Assad’s coastal strongholds, and the Russian strategy seems primarily aimed at securing this territory from further incursions. Jaysh al-Fateh conquered most of Idlib in a spring offensive, forcing the regime to abandon the province. Russian airstrikes have repeatedly targeted the province over the past week, though there is no known Isis presence in the area.
The SOHR said Russian planes also bombed targets on the outskirts of the historic city of Palmyra, which was seized by Isis in May, and the town of Qaryatain, which was also seized by the militants this summer and whose Christian residents have either been taken hostage or fled. Syrian state TV said airstrikes also hit Isis positions in northern Aleppo.
It is unclear if the Assad regime will be able to score major ground advances against the rebels following years of vicious warfare that has sapped his armed forces, and amid widespread dereliction of duty among its conscripts, while facing rebels who are united by their anger at the Russian intervention.
“Russia is primarily targeting opposition fighters, and this could end any future peace process in Syria and strengthen the role of Islamic State and the extreme factions that do not want peace, whether they support or oppose the regime,” said the SOHR’s director, Rami Abdul Rahman.
The latest airstrikes and ground assault come amid heightened tensions between Russia and Nato, after Russian fighter planes penetrated Turkish airspace over the weekend, sparking protests and condemnation from the alliance with pledges to respond to future incursions.
The Russian ministry of defence said it was continuing to consult with Turkey to ensure there would be no repetition of the incident.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said it was too early to talk about the results of Russia’s operations in Syria, ordering Shoigu to continue cooperation with the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq on the crisis.
However, the US defence secretary, Ash Carter, said the United States would not cooperate militarily with Russia, although it was willing to hold discussions to secure the safety of its own pilots bombing Isis targets. Calling Moscow’s strategy “tragically flawed”, he renewed accusations that the strikes were not focused on Isis.
The head of the Iraqi parliament’s defence and security committee said Iraq may request Russian airstrikes against Isis on its soil soon, and wants Moscow to have a bigger role than the US in the war against the group.
Speaking in Brussels, the US ambassador to Nato, Douglas Lute, said on Wednesday that Russia’s buildup in Syria now included a “considerable and growing” naval presence, long-range rockets and a battalion of ground troops backed by Moscow’s most modern tanks.
On the eve of a meeting of Nato defence ministers set to be dominated by the intervention, Lute said the Kremlin seemed to be intent on forging a new counter-coalition to the western-Gulf axis, bringing together the Russians, Iranians, Iraqis, and Hezbollah behind Assad.
Moscow had managed a “quite impressive” military deployment over the past week to its Syrian naval base in Tartus and its army base in Latakia, Lute said.
“There is a considerable and growing Russia naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean, more than 10 ships now, which is a bit out of the ordinary,” he told a news briefing.
“The recent Russian reinforcements over the last week or so feature a battalion-size ground force ... There is artillery, there are long-range rocket capabilities, there are air defence capabilities,” Lute said. A battalion is typically made up of about 1,000 soldiers.
A senior Turkish official said 18 Russian warships had passed through the Bosphorus strait at Istanbul en route to Moscow’s Syrian base, amid conflicting reports of Russian ground forces also being deployed.
Nato diplomats doubted the Russians were preparing any ground operations, but were sure that they were training and equipping Assad ground forces and were active on the ground beyond their military bases.
“The Iranians are on the ground, but not the Russians yet,” said the Turkish official.
The Turkish official and Nato diplomats said the Russians had also deployed air-to-air fighter aircraft which would not be used for bombing anti-Assad forces, but would engage in dogfights. François Hollande, the French president, said failure to act in Syria risks stoking “total war” in the Middle East. “What happens in Syria concerns Europe, what happens there will determine the balance of the whole region for a long time,” he said in a speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg.