Vladimir Putin appears to be betting that US President Barack Obama would be unlikely to respond aggressively. Photo: ReutersVladimir Putin appears to be betting that US President Barack Obama would be unlikely to respond aggressively. Photo: Reuters

France’s President Francois Hollande said yesterday he had told Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin he must strike at “Daesh [Islamic State] and only Daesh” during Russian military action in Syria.

Hollande was speaking after meeting Putin yesterday ahead of talks on the future of Ukraine, where the two men were joined by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

“What I told President Putin was that the strikes should concern Daesh and only Daesh. On that basis we have to hold everyone to their responsibilities,” Hollande said after the meetings in Paris.

Meanwhile already out-gunned and out-manned in Syria’s civil war, US-backed rebels are facing a new and possibly even more serious threat to their survival: Russian air strikes that Washington appears reluctant to thwart.

The Obama administration – blindsided by the speed of Moscow’s direct intervention and a Russian target list that included CIA-trained fighters – made clear yesterday that it had no desire to increase the risk of an air clash between the former Cold War foes.

While Washington took pains to insist it still considered the “moderate” opposition vital to Syria’s future, US Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier this week that the US-led coalition would keep flying.

However, President Barack Obama has rarely launched military action in support of the opposition in four years of Syria’s civil war and is hesitant to get further ensnared in the conflict.

The rebels have already struggled in the fight against the Syrian military, dogged by internal divisions and the rise of radical jihadist groups such as Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Obama’s message appears to be that rebels must fend for themselves

Russian warplanes, in a second day of strikes on Thursday, bombed a camp run by anti-government rebels trained by the CIA, the group’s commander said, even as Russia insisted it was hitting only Islamic State forces, a common enemy of Washington and Moscow. US officials believe Moscow’s main objective is to prop up its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia’s deepening role, together with inconclusive talks between the US and Russian militaries on air safety, underscored the consensus in Washington that Obama has few good options for turning the situation around.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be betting that Obama, wary of seeing the US pulled into another Middle East war, would be unlikely to respond aggressively.

The message from the Obama administration, whose efforts to train and equip moderate insurgents have moved slowly and often ineffectively, appeared to be that they must fend for themselves for now in the face of Russian air strikes.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.