Islam Times - Russians Haven’t Done Anything to Fight ISIS: US Defense Minister

Islam Times - The US secretary of Defense who will leave the office in a few days says Russia had done nothing in defeating the ISIS terrorist group in Syria.

During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ash Carter said Moscow has instead adopted a strategy of “explicitly thwarting the U.S.”.

He said such efforts by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin has made it harder to find areas in which Washington and Moscow can work together.

“I think it is something that has grown steadily under Putin’s leadership,” he said. “It seems to be part of his self-conception. And one of the ways he defines the success of his policy is not by results on the ground but the level of the discomfort he can create in the rest of the world and show to his people as the point of his policy.”

He added, “That’s what makes it so difficult to build a bridge” to Russia’s leaders.

Carter bluntly said the Russian military, as it has taken on an increasingly assertive role in shoring up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in recent months, has been unhelpful in the fight against ISIS terrorists.

“They haven’t done anything to fight ISIS,” he said, “everything they’ve done has been wrong headed and completely the obverse of what they said they were going to do.”

Russian leaders also haven’t fulfilled their promise to use their foothold in Syria to “facilitate a transition” away from the Assad government to a broader government that includes the moderate opposition to Assad, Carter said.