Pentagon Proposes Cooperation With Russia Against Jihadis if Assad Halts Strikes

Washington has issued a proposal to Russia that would see greater cooperation against radical groups in northern Syria if Moscow uses its influence to halt the Assad regime's strikes against U.S.-backed rebels.

Both the U.S.-led coalition and the Obama administration have been critical of Russian actions in Syria since it began an airstrike campaign against rebel groups and the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in September 2015.

But the U.S. government knows that closer coordination with Russia, rather than crossing wires, will bring more success against extremist groups plotting attacks against the West. Both parties have been at pains to avoid an escalation as both operate side-by-side in Syrian air space.

Such an agreement would also potentially end the Syrian military's devastating barrel bombings of opposition areas, causing severe civilian casualties. In the five-year Syrian civil war, more than a quarter of a million people have lost their lives.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby refused to deny that the offer had been made, saying on Thursday: "We have been clear about Russia's obligations to ensure regime compliance with the cessation of hostilities. We have also been clear about the danger posed by Al-Qaeda in Syria to our own national security."

Washington's offer involves Russia persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to ground his air force, before the U.S. would then help Russia with its strikes against the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and ISIS, as opposed to U.S.-backed Syrian rebels, officials told the Wall Street Journal.

"I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the Russians want it," one U.S. official said, estimating that an answer from Moscow could take weeks to materialize.

Still, this move, one that would see the Syrian air force stop attacking rebels, already looks increasingly unlikely as the conflict between both sides continues to rage. On Friday, the U.K.-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that Islamist rebels captured a Syrian air force pilot after his plane crashed in the western Qalamun region near the capital, Damascus.

"It is not known whether it crashed due to a technical fault or it was hit by rebels," SOHR chief Rami Abdelrahman told AFP news agency.

The Syrian military is conducting a search for the pilot but the Islamist group that captured him, the Nusrat Al-Mazlum, have passed him to another rebel group. While that group has not been identified, the Saudi-funded Army of Islam coalition claimed to have possession of the pilot.