Putin stages “mission accomplished” visit to Syria
By
Bill Van Auken
12 December 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise visit to Syria Monday, delivering a laudatory speech to Russian troops at the Hmeimim air base in the country’s coastal province of Latakia and meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
Russia intervened in Syria at Assad’s request beginning two and a half years ago, providing air support and other aid that proved critical in reversing the gains made by Al Qaeda-linked “rebels” that had been armed and financed by the CIA, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Gulf oil monarchies.
Putin’s visit came just days after he and the Russian Defense Ministry had declared a “complete victory” over the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has been routed from all major Syrian cities, reduced to a few pockets along the Euphrates River in eastern Deir Ezzor province.
Putin said he had ordered the military to withdraw “a significant part” of the Russian military contingent from Syria. At the same time, Moscow has made it clear that it will hold onto the Hmeimim air base, which has been the command and control center for Russia’s military operations in the country since the fall of 2015, as well as the Russian naval base at Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Tartus.
Putin declared in his address to the Russian troops, “If the terrorists raise their heads again, we will strike them with blows, the likes of which they have never seen.”
The plan for Putin to land in Syria was kept secret until after his plane had touched down. Coming barely three months before Russia’s presidential election, in which Putin is running for another six-year term, the Russian president’s speech had a “mission…