Kadyrov to Get Another Term, Say Kremlin Sources (Exclusive)
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Barely a month has gone by without a controversy involving Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
India's Billion-Member Biometric Database Raises Privacy Fears by webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
India's parliament is set to pass legislation that gives federal agencies access to the world's biggest biometric database in the interests of national security, raising fears the privacy of a billion people could be compromised. The move comes as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cracks down on student protests and pushes a Hindu nationalist agenda in state elections, steps that some say erode India's traditions of tolerance and free speech. It could also usher in surveillance far more intrusive than the U.S. telephone and Internet spying revealed by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, some privacy advocates said. The Aadhaar database scheme, started seven years ago, was set up to streamline payment of benefits and cut down on massive wastage and fraud, and already nearly a billion people have registered their finger prints and iris signatures. Now the BJP, which inherited the scheme, wants to pass new provisions including those on national security, using a loophole to bypass the opposition in parliament. "It has been showcased as a tool exclusively meant for disbursement of subsidies and we do not realize that it can also be used for mass surveillance," said Tathagata Satpathy, a lawmaker from the eastern state of Odisha. "Can the government ... assure us that this Aadhaar card and the data that will be collected under it - biometric, biological, iris scan, finger print, everything put together - will not be misused as has been done by the NSA in the U.S.?" Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has defended the legislation in parliament, saying Aadhaar saved the government an estimated 150 billion rupees ($2.2 billion) in the 2014-15 financial year alone. A finance ministry spokesman added that the government had taken steps to ensure citizens' privacy would be respected and the authority to access data was exercised only in rare cases. According to another government official, the new law is in fact more limited in scope than the decades-old Indian Telegraph Act, which permits national security agencies and tax authorities to intercept telephone conversations of individuals in the interest of public safety. 'Police state' Those assurances have not satisfied political opponents and people from religious minorities, including India's sizeable Muslim community, who say the database could be used as a tool to silence them. "We are midwifing a police state," said Asaduddin Owaisi, an opposition MP. Raman Jit Singh Chima, global policy director at Access, an international digital rights organization, said the proposed Indian law lacked the transparency and oversight safeguards found in Europe or the United States, which last year reformed its bulk telephone surveillance program. He pointed to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which must approve many surveillance requests made by intelligence agencies, and European data protection authorities as oversight mechanisms not present in the Indian proposal. The Indian government brought the Aadhaar legislation to the upper house of parliament on Wednesday in a bid to secure passage before lawmakers go into recess. To get around its lack of a majority there, the BJP is presenting it as a financial bill, which the upper chamber cannot reject. It can return it to the lower house, where the ruling party has a majority. In its assessment of the measure, New Delhi-based PRS Legislative Research said law enforcement agencies could use someone's Aadhaar number as a link across various datasets such as telephone and air travel records. That would allow them to recognize patterns of behavior and detect potential illegal activities. But it could also lead to harassment of individuals who are identified incorrectly as potential security threats, PRS said. Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, said Aaadhaar created a central repository of biometrics for almost every citizen of the world's most populous democracy that could be compromised. "Maintaining a central database is akin to getting the keys of every house in Delhi and storing them at a central police station," he said. "It is very easy to capture iris data of any individual with the use of next generation cameras. Imagine a situation where the police is secretly capturing the iris data of protesters and then identifying them through their biometric records." ($1 = 67.0500 Indian rupees)
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The move against White Wolves Terrorcrew is intended to demonstrate that the authorities will not tolerate agitation against foreigners and migrants.
Obama to Travel to Britain, Saudi Arabia in Aprilby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
President Barack Obama will travel to Saudi Arabia and Britain next month ahead of his long-planned trip to Germany. The White House says Obama will head to Saudi Arabia on April 21 for a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Obama last year hosted leaders from the group of Persian Gulf nations. They'll discuss the fight against the Islamic State group and other Mideast security concerns. Obama also will visit London, where he'll have lunch with Queen Elizabeth II and meet with Prime Minister David Cameron. Obama has encouraged the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union ahead of a June 23 referendum. The White House says Obama will attend the trade show Hannover Messe in Germany and meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
NATO Chief Predicts Another Tough Year Ahead for Afghanistan by webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
The head of NATO on Wednesday predicted a difficult fight ahead for Afghanistan as the government continues to battle the Taliban and other militant factions trying to assert their presence in the war-ravaged country. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO's secretary general, said insurgents will press their fight against Kabul in what is likely to be another tough year for the Afghan government. He spoke to The Associated Press during a two-day visit to Kabul, his second since taking the top NATO role in late 2014. The Taliban, al-Qaida and the Islamic State group will keep up their attacks across Afghanistan throughout 2016, he said. "We have seen different terrorist organizations trying to establish themselves in Afghanistan," he said. "We have seen the presence of al-Qaida, IS, the Taliban and all the groups, and they are still in Afghanistan." "There is going to be continued fighting and we have to expect that there are going to be new attacks on the government forces," he added. NATO has around 3,000 troops in Afghanistan, in the so-called Resolute Support non-combat mission along with about 9,800 U.S. soldiers. The mission was pared down in 2014, with the departure of most international combat troops, leaving Afghan forces to take on the insurgency largely alone. For now, the United States will halve troop numbers at the end of this year. Stoltenberg said NATO's numbers for 2017 are not yet clear. The use of U.S. airstrikes to back Afghan forces has been critical in helping them hold ground and can push Taliban and other insurgent groups out of contested areas. The Taliban were well-prepared for the end of the U.S.-NATO combat mission and swiftly intensified their insurgency, now in its 15th year. Officials have said that Afghan forces suffered almost 30 percent more deaths and casualties in 2015 than the estimated 5,000 of the year before. There have been no official figures released on those casualties. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan says more than 11,000 civilians were killed and wounded last year, many of them women and children caught in the crossfire. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said this week that the extremists from an Islamic State affiliate that had gained a foothold in the east last year, with ambitions to move north toward the Central Asia states, were now "on the run" following military operations. Analysts, however, dispute that assessment, and also point to the spread in the north by the Taliban and other Islamic militants. Nevertheless, Stoltenberg was upbeat in his praise for Afghan forces and said NATO efforts would focus on Kunduz in the north and Helmand in the south, where the Taliban are fighting to hold lucrative routes for smuggling men, guns, drugs, alcohol and minerals. A dire assessment was also expressed by the U.N. mission chief in Afghanistan, Nicholas Haysom, who on Tuesday told the U.N. Security Council that the Afghan government was fighting for its survival amid surging militants. Unless the government overcame "five distinct hurdles" it would face "severe consequences," Haysom said, listing a contracting economy, intensifying insurgency, fractious political environment as well as desperately needed funding from the international community and the need to demonstrate progress toward a sustainable peace. "For 2016, survival will be an achievement," Haysom said at the U.N. Ghani's government is hoping to draw the Taliban into a dialogue aimed at formal peace talks, but a face-to-face meeting between representatives of both sides that had been expected earlier this month has yet to be set. The Taliban said last week they would not participate. Meanwhile, violence continues to kill and wound civilians and Afghan security forces. In Kunar province, bordering Pakistan, a woman and three of her children died when a rocket landed on their home in the Ghazi Abad district early Wednesday, the provincial police chief, Faridullah Dehqaan said. Further south, in Nangarhar province, also bordering Pakistan, an attack by militants loyal to IS left six policemen "killed or wounded," the provincial governor's spokesman Ataullah Khogyani said. The attack on their checkpoint took place around 2am Wednesday, he said.
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Sputnik International |
Pentagon Drops the Ball Over Open Skies Treaty With Russia
Sputnik International US media has responded to the concerns of US Army generals over Russia's plans to upgrade its surveillance equipment on Tu-214OS (Open Skies), a special-purpose reconnaissance aircraft, used for flights under the Open Skies Treaty, by telling them to ... |
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Russian-speaking jihadis in Syria 'could threaten Moscow in future' by Shaun Walker in Moscow
International Crisis Group says apparent policy of allowing Islamists to leave before Sochi Olympics could come back to haunt Russia
Thousands of Russian-speaking jihadis fighting for Islamic State and other militant groups in Syria and Iraq could cause serious problems for Moscow in the medium- and long-term future, according to a thinktank.
Vladimir Putin and other senior officials have repeatedly stated that Russia’s engagement in the Syrian civil war was in part a response to the number of Russians – mainly Chechens and other natives of the restive North Caucasus region – fighting in the region.
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Chief Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari has refused to start direct talks with opposition representatives, as peace talks entered a third day in Geneva.
Today's Headlines and Commentary by Cody M. Poplin
Charlie Savage’s lede today, as part of a story about the United State’s recent military operations against al Shabaab, brings us all the context we need for today’s news:
“A striking fact about post-9/11 life is that Americans can wake up and discover that they are already at war with yet another Islamist group in yet another part of the world — based not on congressional debate but on an executive branch decision that the group is sufficiently linked to Al Qaeda.”
Savage’s point? The United States’s war against terrorism in far away lands, and the arcane missions in hard to pronounce places that accompany it, are the fuel that allows the Obama administration to keep “eroding limits on presidential war-making powers.” The argument has particular salience as the U.S. military engages in new fighting in Somalia, and potentially gears up once again in Libya.
Yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Joe Sowers provided a statement saying that the government has still not deemed al Shabaab an “associated force” of al Qaeda, but that the airstrike on March 5—one that killed 150 militants—was “authorized by the 2001 A.U.M.F.” Savage has more on that theory, and why both Bobby Chesney and Ashley Deeks see the Administration's “rationale as an innovation with significant implications for limits on a president’s power to start a war.”
More information today regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unexpected announcementyesterday that Moscow would withdraw the “main parts” of its forces in Syria. The Times notes that the move has prompted speculation from capitals around the world, as “the Russian decision could signal a new confidence in Mr. Assad’s stability or an effort to pressure him to negotiate with his political adversaries---or both.” The move seems to have been clearly timed to coincide with the resumption of peace talks in Geneva, with U.N. Syria Envoy Staffan de Mistura calling the decision a “significant development.”
In his announcement, Putin stated that Russia would keep open Russian air force and naval bases in western Syria. Moreover, a Kremlin spokesman would not rule out further Russian airstrikes in Syria against “terrorists.” Even so, Reuters reports that Russian warplanes began to fly home earlier today. Upon arrival, “the pilots were greeted by between 200 to 300 servicemen, journalists, and their wives and daughters, waving Russian flags, balloons in red, white, and blue, and flowers.” A brass band played Soviet military songs as the pilots were thrown in the air by the crowd. Television stations broadcast the images broadly in Russia throughout the day.
Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama spoke by phone yesterday. The White House, which was caught off-guard by the announcement, said that Mr. Obama welcomed the reduction in violence in Syria, and “underscored that a political transition is required to end the violence” permanently.
Yet while a further reduction in violence in Syria would certainly be welcome, in Politico, Michael Crowley and Nahal Toosi ask, “Did Putin once again outfox Obama?” Elsewhere, in Defense One, the president’s former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, Evelyn N. Farkas, argues that “Putin got exactly what he wanted in Syria,” noting that the drawdown amounts to an admission that his target was never al Qaeda or the Islamic State. Yet others disagree that the withdrawal is all good news for Russia. In Foreign Affairs, Kimberly Marten and Rajan Menon take up the argument that Russia is withdrawing troops because of biting sanctions, suggesting that while this “can’t merely be a money-saving decision,” Putin has “every reason to avoid the burden of a long-term war.”
As Russia draws down, the war continues: Islamic State suicide bombers killed 47 Iraqi soldiers near Ramadi in a series of coordinated attacks against military barracks and convoys, according to Al Jazeera. Iraqi Security Forces retook Ramadi in December, but much of Anbar province remains in ISIS hands, complicating the security dynamics of the area.
The BBC reports that the Pentagon confirmed the death of Omar al Shishani, otherwise known as Omar the Chechen. A Georgian famous for his fighting skill, al Shishani was considered the “Minister of War” for the Islamic State. Al Shishani appeared to have survived the initial strike that targeted him on March 4th; the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that he died of his wounds several days later.
The New York Times sheds more light on the case of Mohamad Jamal Khweis, a 26-year-old man from Virginia and ISIS fighter who surrendered to Kurdish peshmerga fighters in Iraq on Monday.Khweis identified himself as a foreigner, and according to Kurdish fighters, was carrying three cell phones, a few thousands dollars in mixed currency, and a Virginia driver’s license. The Timesshares that law enforcement officials are still trying to determine whether Mr. Khweis actually fought alongside the Islamic State. His father told reporters that he did not know where his son was at the time.
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a resolution by a vote of 393-0 to label ISIS’s attacks against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities as genocide. The Hillwrites that the “measure calls on all governments and international organizations like the United Nations to label the violence in the same way.” A former U.N. designation of ISIS’s crimes as genocide would potentially carry significant obligations for the international community, as theConvention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide calls for the “prevention and suppression” of the crime. The Hill has more.
Missy Ryan and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post report that General John F. Campbell, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan until earlier this month, “broke with standard military procedure” and forwarded a proposal for “resuming offensive strikes against the Taliban” directly to the White House in recent weeks. The Post reports that General Campbell did not clear his proposal with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter before sending to the White House; however, Campbell denied that he has not passed his proposal up the proper chain of command. Even so, the Post suggests that the proposal received “a chilly reception at the White House,” “exposing a rift between the military and senior administration officials over the U.S. role in the war in Afghanistan.”
Whatever the U.S.'s role, it appears that the Taliban does not yet want peace. According to Reuters, earlier this month, “Pakistani officials threatened to expel Afghanistan’s Taliban from bases in Pakistan if they did not join the peace talks this month, but the militants rebuffed their traditional patron.” Instead, viewing Afghanistan as an operationally conducive environment, Reuters notes, “the insurgents are now pouring back into Afghanistan for what they say will be a fierce spring offensive.” However, Afghan officials in Kabul were more skeptical of Islamabad’s account, with one cabinet member arguing that “Pakistan’s honesty and sincerity with regard to the Afghan peace process has been a question.”
“Myanmar’s parliament elected a close friend and confidant of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as president on Tuesday, making Htin Kyaw the first head of state who does not hail from a military background since the 1960s,” Reuters reports.
According to state media, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said yesterday that his country will soon test another nuclear warhead and a ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The rhetorical salvo is only the latest in a series of threats and repeated violations of U.N. resolutions that have put the country back in the forefront of the collective U.S. national security consciousness.
The Hill reports that the Obama administration plans to follow a playbook it used against Chinese hackers in 2014 and indict Iranian hackers responsible for infiltrating a New York dam in 2013. The move would be “an attempt to deter Tehran’s rapidly developing cyber program.” It would also be the first public step the government has taken against Iranian hacking. Adam Segal of the Council on Foreign Relations explained that the indictments are meant to “send a signal about U.S. attribution capabilities in an attempt to kind of create a deterrence.” The Hill has more.
It remains unclear, however, how effective those indictments have been. Reuters reports that four security firms have attributed a series of ransomware attacks with the Chinese government, as the attacks mirrored government-supported computer network intrusions, with “a level of sophistication” similar to that in state-sponsored attacks. A Chinese spokesman said that the country did not have time to respond to “rumors and speculation.” Ransomware would be a new kind of attack for the Chinese government, leading to theories that Beijing’s recent crackdown on cyber hacking has led “some government hackers or contractors...to supplement their income via ransomware.”
Parting Shot: In a story that sounds like it is straight out of a Cold War plot, a Russian bank employee in New York pleaded guilty on Friday to spying on behalf of the Russian government. The employee, Evgeny Buryakov, was accused of conspiring with two other Russians stationed in New York to collect intelligence on behalf of the Russian foreign intelligence agency, S.V.R. in order to learn more about “potential United States sanctions against the Russian Federation and the United States’ efforts to develop alternative energy resources.”
ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare
David Bosco updated us on a new draft policy paper from the ICC prosecutor’s office that describes how the ICC chooses its cases.
Daniel Severson outlined exactly what’s in the U.K. Investigatory Powers Bill, or the “Snoopers Charter.”
Email the Roundup Team noteworthy law and security-related articles to include, and follow us onTwitter and Facebook for additional commentary on these issues. Sign up to receive Lawfare in your inbox. Visit our Events Calendar to learn about upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings on our Job Board.
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Free Syrian Army 'spymaster' says his agents have been providing the US agency with GPS positions of its leaders and headquarters but the US has failed to act
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The move could force more concessions from Syria’s president.
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Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency says a court in Istanbul has charged three academics with making terrorist propaganda and ordered them arrested pending the outcome of a trial.
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The king and queen of Spain flew to the former colony of Puerto Rico to help launch on Tuesday what is considered the world’s most important event involving the Spanish language.
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Secretary of State John Kerry said he would travel to Moscow next week to discuss a political solution to Syria’s five-year war, as the U.S. and key players strain to figure out how Russia’s partial military withdrawal changes the dynamics of the conflict and nascent peace talks.
Mr. Kerry said Tuesday he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The visit follows Russia’s surprise announcement Monday that it would withdraw most of its troops from Syria, as the cease-fire there entered its third week.
“We have reached a very important phase in this process,“ Mr. Kerry said.
Russian warplanes began returning from Syria on Tuesday. State television showed Su-34 bomber pilots being greeted by families and news crews at an air base in western Russia, following an engagement that claimed a handful of Russian lives.
“Putin said we would not be in for a long time,” said Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Moscow-based defense think tank CAST. “Sometimes, it’s worth taking the man literally.”
The withdrawal announcement coincided with the beginning of United Nations-led peace talks in Geneva, suggesting that Russia wants to influence a political settlement and that the Kremlin is trying to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to engage fully in the process.
Diplomats in Geneva cautiously cited progress in indirect negotiations between the main warring parties.
U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has met separately with both delegations, and subsequent meetings over the next week and a half should focus on the issues at the heart of the Syrian conflict: forging a compromise for a political transition.
The Syrian opposition delegation said it outlined for him its broad views on how to move forward, a day after the government delegation offered its own plan.
The government wants to create a national unity government drawing in the opposition and leaving the fate of Mr. Assad up to voters. The opposition wants a transitional body with executive powers that would strip Mr. Assad of authority and ultimately see him out of power.
Mr. de Mistura wouldn’t go into the details of either plan Tuesday, but he said he felt a new sense of urgency to resolve the crisis. “I do feel there is a difference,” he told reporters.
Mr. Putin intervened in Syria last fall with an aim of saving the Syrian government. With regime forces consolidating gains, Western and Arab diplomats and officials said Moscow had become frustrated in recent weeks with what they described as Mr. Assad’s continued defiance toward the peace process.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond expressed skepticism about the Kremlin’s surprise withdrawal, questioning whether Russia was backing a genuine political transition. “It is worth remembering that Russia announced withdrawal of forces in Ukraine, which later turned out merely to be routine rotation of forces,” Mr. Hammond said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sought to raise the pressure on all sides, reiterating his call for the Security Council to authorize an investigation of war crimes in Syria by the International Criminal Court.
It wasn’t clear how many Russian troops and aircraft would remain in Syria. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday evening that Russia would maintain the military air base it built up last year in Hmeimim, near the port city of Latakia, and a decades-old naval installation at Tartus.
The Assad regime’s next steps also aren’t clear. It hasn’t reclaimed from rebels all of the territory it sees as important, and it isn’t clear if it can do so without Russian firepower.
Regular Syrian troops are worn thin after five years of conflict, and many military-aged males fled as refugees to Europe to avoid conscription. The army relied increasingly on Shiite paramilitaries from Iraq, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Afghanistan to drive the most difficult ground operations.
The regime “is confident and cocky, but they were overstretched—no question about that,” a Western diplomat tracking the war in Syria said.
Syrian opposition activists on Tuesday marked what many consider the fifth anniversary of the antiregime uprising. Mostly peaceful protests then were met with a regime crackdown that degenerated into a war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced roughly half the population, creating more than four million refugees.
Rebels and activists celebrated news of the withdrawal. “Many people here think it’s a position that will strengthen the opposition,” said Hadi Abdullah, an activist in Idlib province. “Now we’ll have maybe two or three jets flying in the sky and bombing us, not 12 or 13 at a time.”
Mr. Abdullah said rebels in Idlib fired their guns in the air to celebrate the news all night Monday.
Observers have long said Mr. Putin aimed to use the Syria campaign as a way to end Russia’s international isolation, by offering a common front against Islamic State, which controls territory in both Syria and Iraq.
But while the Kremlin cast its air war as a counterterror campaign, U.S. and Western officials complained that Russian warplanes also targeted relatively moderate Syrian opposition groups.
“A sizable drawdown could mean that Russian President Putin calculates he has gotten his maximum military bang for the buck in Syria, and that anything further would encounter diminishing returns,” said Frederic Hof, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Saving Assad from defeat and perhaps making him impervious to demands that he step aside are no small feats.”
—Asa Fitch in Geneva, Thomas Grove in Moscow and Jenny Gross in London contributed to this article.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin’s typically theatrical order to withdraw the bulk of Russian forces from Syria, a process that the Defense Ministry said it began on Tuesday, seemingly caught Washington, Damascus and everybody in between off guard — just the way the Russian leader likes it.
By all accounts, Mr. Putin delights at creating surprises, reinforcing Russia’s newfound image as a sovereign, global heavyweight and keeping him at the center of world events.
In the case of Syria, the sudden, partial withdrawal more than five months after an equally surprising intervention allows Mr. Putin to claim a list of achievements without a significant cost to Russia in blood or rubles.
If the roughly 4,000 Russian troops centered on a contingent of about 50 combat aircraft remained in Syria, Mr. Putin risked becoming just another proxy force fighting for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. But Mr. Putin wanted to make his mark by forging a solution in Syria, rather than lingering long enough to validate President Obama’s contention that Moscow had jumped headfirst into a quagmire.
“Russia does not want to fight for Assad as such,” said Aleksei V. Makarkin, the deputy director of the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. “If Russia continued, that would make it more dependent on Mr. Assad and would make it clash with other players directly.”
Analysts noted that Mr. Putin had achieved most, if not all, of his goals — some stated, others not.
First, to thwart another Western attempt to push for leadership change in Syria and to fight the very idea of outside governments forcing political shifts.
Second, to show that Moscow is a more reliable ally than Washington, given that the Obama administration had abandoned long-term allies like former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt when they faced political upheaval.
Third, to restore to Russia the role it had in the Soviet era as an important actor in the Middle East and as a global problem solver, and to force respect for Mr. Putin as a world leader.
Fourth, to shatter the isolation that Washington had tried to impose on Moscow after the crisis in Ukraine, forging a dialogue with the United States and, to a lesser degree, with Europe.
Fifth, a subset of the previous goal, to distract attention from the war in Ukraine and to get lifted the economic sanctions imposed on Russia — a step the Kremlin is desperate to achieve in the face of continuing economic problems. Saving the estimated $3 million daily cost of the Syrian operations will also help, but it was not considered decisive.
Sixth, to show off the effectiveness of a new generation of weaponry from Russia, the biggest arms exporter in the world after the United States.
Many analysts thought the main goal, of forcing a dialogue with the United States and of reviving the Cold War idea that Washington and Moscow are the main global police forces, had been achieved. Mr. Obama’s spokesman first said that the president had no idea about plans for a Russian withdrawal, but soon after the Kremlin website noted that the Russian and American leaders had spoken by telephone.
“The resurrection from oblivion of Russian-U.S. cooperation is one of the most important political results of the operation,” Vladimir Frolov, an expert on international relations, wrote on the Russian website Slon.ru. “It turns out only two superpowers can stop the war.”
The arrival of the decision like a jack-in-the-box was vintage Putin. According to published accounts of how he seized Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, the Russian president, a former K.G.B. operative, consults a tiny circle of security and military advisers on crucial foreign policy questions.
The inner circle consists of Sergei K. Shoigu, the defense minister; Sergei B. Ivanov, the leader of the president’s administration and a former top operative in state security; Alexander V. Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service, known as the F.S.B.; and Nikolai P. Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council and a previous F.S.B. director.
Given their backgrounds, the men believe that secrecy is the key to good government, said Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist, and they abhorred the leaky Kremlin of the 1990s.
The partial cease-fire in Syria, which began Feb. 27, has proved more effective and durable than expected, significantly reducing the level of violence.
They also believe that surprise announcements provide a giant public relations payoff, keeping Russians riveted to the TV news and making them feel that they are included in a parade of thrilling events, Ms. Schulmann said.
“A good decision in today’s Russia should be swift and surprising and take everyone unawares,” she said. “That is considered good political management.”
They are also meant to emphasize that Russia acts alone. “The main goal is to show that Russia acts completely independently,” said Alexander Morozov, an independent political analyst. “We expand our military presence without any prior consultations and wrap it up without any warning.”
A statement by Mr. Assad calling the announcement about the Russian withdrawal the result of a consultation process seems somewhat dubious given Mr. Putin’s habit of not sharing his thinking with many Russians, much less with foreigners.
Some analysts said the sudden decision was intended to send a message to Mr. Assad, who by all accounts has exasperated Mr. Putin by becoming ever more inflexible at the negotiating table as his battlefield fortunes have improved.
Mr. Assad recently earned a rebuke from Russia for saying that he would continue fighting until he had unified all of Syria, and after his foreign minister dismissed talk of presidential elections, which are supposed to be part of a transition to peace. Arab diplomats in Damascus said that their Russian counterparts had emphasized in recent weeks that Russia intervened to protect the Syrian state, not Mr. Assad himself.
“I think this is a shot into Assad’s bow, not over Assad’s bow, as Putin’s way of saying that it is now up to you,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a Washington-based consulting firm. “At least for now, Putin is a looming maven of peace, and that is pretty clever.”
The stated goal of the military deployment in Syria was to take the fight against the metastasizing Islamic State to the “terrorists” themselves, before they could take the fight to Russia.
Instead, the main targets proved to be immediate threats to Mr. Assad in western Syria, many of them allied with Western or Arab powers. In summarizing the achievements of the mission, Mr. Shoigu, the defense minister, noted that Russia had helped the government restore control over 400 towns and nearly 4,000 square miles of territory.
Modern Russia has inflamed conflict in former Soviet republics to create “frozen zones,” allowing it to influence events and confound its opponents.
OPEN Map
Some analysts in Russia and elsewhere also said they thought that Mr. Putin had begun to realize that the violence that Russia was helping to perpetuate in Syria was working at cross purposes with the goal of showing Europe that he is a reliable partner and a peacemaker who does not deserve the economic sanctions that are denying Russia desperately needed access to Western credit markets.
The European Union has hinged lifting sanctions to putting into effect the Minsk II peace accords in Ukraine. The Europeans have also been alarmed that the escalating violence in Syria, now entering its sixth year, is feeding an enormous refugee crisis.
It remains unclear whether Mr. Assad will show a new willingness to negotiate after the loss of his principal military patron. Syria still has foreign allies in Iran and Hezbollah that have long shored up the government. They have no interest in a political transition, which risks replacing the government dominated by the Alawite minority, a Shiite sect, with the majority Sunnis.
There have long been questions about just how much leverage Moscow has ever had over Damascus, and the coming weeks might tell.
If Damascus begins to flounder without Russian support, the withdrawal is instantly reversible. Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, noted that not all forces would be withdrawn from the Hmeymim air base near Latakia, nor from the longstanding Russian naval refueling and repair facility at Tartus.
Russia will also keep its powerful S-400 air defense system in Syria to protect the forces staying behind, Mr. Ivanov, the head of the president’s administration, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. That would maintain Russian dominance of Syrian airspace, where bombers were still carrying out attacks on Palmyra on Tuesday, even as others were shown on Russian TV flying home.
In Russia, people were asking “What next?” as often as “Why now?” The rainbow of responses indicated that Mr. Putin was again leaving his own people guessing.
Several members of the opposition dared to hope that with problems building up at home and parliamentary elections coming in September, Mr. Putin may be ready to focus more on domestic ills.
“The choice is simple: It’s either a mobilization against an external enemy or mobilization against internal problems,” Dmitry Gudkov, one of few members of the opposition in Parliament, wrote on his Facebook page. “If suddenly, and almost unbelievably, it is the second, even ahead of elections, we at least have a slim chance.”
Correction: March 15, 2016
An earlier version of this article misstated where Russia concentrated its firepower as a result of immediate threats to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. It was in the west, not the east.
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A senior Islamic State militant whom the United States military tried to kill in an airstrike in Syria last week has died of his wounds, according to a senior Pentagon official.
The militant, Omar al-Shishani, was the Islamic State’s minister of war, according to the Pentagon. The name was an Arab pseudonym for Omar the Chechen, though he was a Georgian national.
The airstrike occurred March 4 near the Syrian city of Shaddadi, where he had gone “to bolster” Islamic State fighters after “a series of strategic defeats to local forces” that are being supported by the United States, the Pentagon said last Tuesday in a statement that announced the airstrike.
At the time, the Pentagon said it was still assessing whether he had been killed. Soon after the strike, jihadists claimed on social media that Mr. Shishani had been wounded, but survived the attack. The senior Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence assessments, said Monday that the United States had confirmed Mr. Shishani’s death, but declined to say precisely when he died or how American spy agencies knew that.
Mr. Shishani, whose real name was Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili, was among thousands of foreign fighters who flocked to Syria in recent years to join the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
According to the Pentagon, he led Islamic State fighters in many battles in Iraq and Syria. He was said to have overseen the group’s prison near Raqqa.
Last May, the State Department offered up to $5 million for information on his whereabouts.
His absence, the Pentagon said, would impede the Islamic State’s “ability to recruit foreign fighters — especially those from Chechnya and the Caucasus regions — and degrade ISIL’s ability to coordinate attacks and defense of its strongholds.”
Mr. Shishani was considered something of an enigma, even within the Islamic State.
Despite being widely thought of as a leader and a warrior, some called him “Abu Meat” because he had a reputation for sitting in a control room and sending young men to their deaths.
Russia announced it will pull the bulk of its troops from Syria starting March 15, in a process that could take up to 5 months. (Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation)
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced March 14 that Russia had sufficiently achieved its goals in Syria since beginning airstrikes in September, and that it will gradually withdraw the bulk of its forces from the country, starting March 15. According to Putin, the process could take as long as five months. However, Russia's air base in Latakia will continue to operate, as will its naval facility in Tartus.
Russia's involvement in Syria has been guided by a number of key priorities. The first is ensuring the stability of the allied Syrian government and by extension Russian interests in Syria. The second is demonstrating and testing its armed forces, which are undergoing a significant force modernization. The third is weakening the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations, especially given the large number of Russian nationals fighting in Syria among extremist factions. The fourth, and the most important, is for Russia to link its actions in Syria to other issues — including the conflict in Ukraine, disputes with the European Union and U.S. sanctions on Russia.
The support that the Russians and other external actors such as Iran and Hezbollah have given the Syrian government has largely reversed the rebels' momentum, and currently loyalist forces have the advantage. However, rebel troops have not been defeated, and a significant drawdown of Russian forces could weaken loyalist efforts. However, it is important to remember that Russia alone did not reverse the loyalist fortunes; Iranian support for the Syrian government could go a long way in maintaining their advantage.
With their actions in Syria thus far, the Russians have showcased their improved combat capabilities and some new, previously unused weapons, which will likely contribute to important arms sales, including some to Iran. Russia has also largely achieved its goal of weakening the Islamic State, though the Russian contribution against the terrorist group is just a part of a much broader, multilateral effort that includes the U.S.-led coalition, rebel forces and the majority Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces. All in all, the Islamic State may not be entirely defeated, but its forces in Syria and Iraq are much weaker than they were five months ago.
Still, progress on Russia's primary goal is still uncertain. Moscow intervened in Syria to gain concessions on issues in other regions; whether or not it has been successful may depend in part on the terms of any peace deal. The March 15 drawdown, which is coming just as U.N. peace talks begin in Geneva, could be a sign of a breakthrough in the negotiations. It will be important to keep an eye on any signs of a deal emerging from Geneva and for indications coming out of Europe that could allude to a potential grand bargain.
Of course, it could be that Putin is greatly exaggerating the significance of the drawdown, which may not significantly alter Russian actions in Syria. Though it is highly unlikely, the Russians may even be pulling out in defeat, having realized they cannot achieve their hoped-for grand bargain in Syria after all.
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