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Turkey Invades Syria, Goes For Aleppo
Today al Qaeda in Syria, aka Jabhat al Nusra which the U.S. has nurtured since 2012, pulled back from its areas in Aleppo governate. The Turkish president Erdogan wants these areas to block a Kurdish autonomous area in north Syria but also as a supply zone for his forces which those will need to later take Aleppo city, Erdogan's real strategic target.
Nusra claims that the retreat was because it would not support Turkey's attack on Syria and/or fight against the Islamic State for solely Turkish and U.S. gains. But the timing makes it clear that it had simply received an order or an offer it could not refuse: "Move now or we will cut you off from the money and logistics you have received for so long."
A few hours after Nusra pulled away from the fronts in Aleppo governate and moved towards Idlib the Turkish invasion started:
@sayed_ridha
Reports of first Turkmen Battalion from the #Turkey backed Sultan Murad Army entering #Syria via Bab Al-Salame #Aleppo
@SerioSito
BREAKING Kurdish ANF: "occupying forces organized by MİT" entered Syria from the Bab Al-Selamê border gate #TwitterKurds #Turkey #Syria 1/2
@SerioSito
ANF: (Turkmen) “Sultan Murat Brigade” & “Fatih Sultan Mehmet Brigade” entered #Syria via Bab al-#Salameh + one group coming from Idlib 2/2
@SerioSito
Al-Nusra leaves N Aleppo 4 Idlib, Turkmen groups leave Idlib 4 N Aleppo = preparation 4 Turkish controlled Safe-Zone
U.S. Air Force fighter jets have arrived at Incerlik air-base in Turkey and provide air cover for the Turkish invasion.
The Turkish intelligence service M.I.T. has trained some 5,000 Turkmen, allegedly Syrians of Turkish heritage and speaking the Turkish language, to take Erdogan's corridor to Aleppo:
Touching the Turkish border at the provinces of Kilis and Gaziantep, it is nearly 100 km in width, from Azaz in the west and Cerablus in the east and with an approximate depth of 40 km. Turkish jets (and artillery when necessary) will hit targets mostly in this region for “cleaning” it of ISIL forces. This is planned to be executed with the help of a 5,000 strong army mainly consisting of Turkmens living in Syria. One source said that this force, which has been assisted by Turks, would be in coordination with the U.S.-led coalition. (Turkish government had announced earlier that the ammunition carried by the trucks belonging to the National Intelligence Organization and seized by gendarmerie on their way to Syria in January 2014 were not going to ISIL nor al-Nusra related groups but Turkmens defending themselves.)
Many of these "Turkmen" will simply be relabeled Jabhat al Nusra mercenaries and jihadists, others will be Turkish special forces. They are to hold the ground for the coming Turkish "moderate rebel" attack to take all of Aleppo.
Meanwhile international negotiations over ending the war on Syria are proceeding. Some interesting new information came to light today.
From Al-Akhbar but with Mujtahid quoted tweets… nevertheless… an interesting turn we are seeing in many media reports – the essence is a way to get an Arab agreement on Bashar staying (for now) and stopping this war.
Translated by mideastwire.com in tonight’s Daily Briefing: “…The first reaction came from within the Kingdom through the tweets of famous Saudi Tweeter, Mujtahid, who revealed the existence of “an Emirati, Egyptian, Jordanian, Omani agreement to rehabilitate the Syrian regime; and attempts at convincing Saudi Arabia to approve the plan.”
…
“Mujtahid indicated that the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince promised that the Kingdom will not object to the rehabilitation of the Syrian regime and the return of the ambassadors of any country to Damascus “provided that the Saudi participation in this arrangement is delayed.” He added that “Ben Salman has no reservations and the reason for his hesitation is because the American and Turkish intelligence services believe that Al-Assad will not be lasting for much longer and that it’s wrong to bet on him….”
The Arabs dictators who wanted Assad to go have changed their opinions. Russia (and Iran) nudge them along. They are ready to again accept Assad and the Syrian state. As they are mostly paying all the mercenaries fighting against the Syrian state this would be a real step towards peace.
But the Turks and the U.S. have different plans. How else could they now insist that Assad will soon fall? Something they have predicted since 2011. They must have their plans to continue the war and Erdogan's attack on Syria today is exactly into that direction.
As the Arabs are now turning away from regime change in Syria the U.S. and Turkey come under time constrains. They will now move faster to achieve their aims.
As is obvious to everyone except mainstream ‘news’ reporters and analysts, the only fighters the US has been able to round up for the ‘new, better Syria’ are insane Sunni religous nutcase savages. As you can imagine, Syrians generally and emphatically oppose those nutballs and the Turkish and Saudi tanks they rode in on, and a result the ‘overthrow Assad’ strategy has failed. And yet the US carries on, stupidity, bureaucratic inertia and saving face and all that, finding comfort at least creating death and chaos in places not receptive to the Western corporate borg. And that is working well, of course, for the time being.
In contrast to that reality, here’s how leading mainstreamer David Ignatius describes the latest US moves relevant to b’s topic. It almost sounds rational:
The border gap that must be closed is a roughly 60-mile stretch from the Euphrates River to Kilis, north of Aleppo. The border area east of the Euphrates, around Kobane, has already been cleared by Syrian Kurdish forces from the “YPG” militia, operating with U.S. air support.
The U.S. has quietly warned Syria that it will repel any attack on the forces gathering for the assault on the Islamic State. That’s not the same as a formal “no-fly zone,” but it could become one if Assad’s air force strikes. Despite Turkish misgivings, the U.S. will continue to provide air support when needed for “YPG” fighters, who the U.S. regards as crucial allies despite their political links with the “PKK,” a radical Kurdish group that Ankara would like to destroy.
A ground assault on Raqqa is still months away. The U.S. is mobilizing a local, tribal force of Syrian Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen that could eventually clear northeast Syria, with U.S. and coalition air support. At present, the U.S. has no plans to embed special operations forces with these fighters.
My take, and supported by b, the Turkmen, and all that, is that what we’re seeing is a simple land grab by Turkey. A thick slice of Syrian territory north of Aleppo will be annexed to Turkey, no give backs. Neither Turkey nor the US is _really_ interested in fighting ISIS in Raqqa, so that will never happen. Nor in doing much at all toward Aleppo, too hard, so I don’t get b on that.
My guess is that relatively close to the action rational imperialists in Turkey realize the overthrow game in Syria is over, and are manipulating US support in order to take ‘back’ some Syrian territory for Erdogan’s Ottoman Empire. Imperialists in the US, on the other hand, far from the action, thoroughly addled by know-nothing yes man media and biased, anti-intellectual, Israel-uber-alles-centric, and corrupted ‘experts’ and PR folks, still think the overthrow game is on. Nope.
Posted by: fairleft | Aug 12 2015 8:21 utc | 41
For any uncertain or unclear as to the object of the Turks and their newly reorganized Turkmen militias, I thought these items made the cut.
The International Crisis group has published it analysis. The renewed conflict begins A new cycle in Turkey-PKK conflict.
Debates about why Ankara is cracking down on the PKK at a dangerous time focus largely on domestic politics….
HDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas centred his party’s campaign around curtailing Erdogan’s ambition to expand his power via constitutional changes that would transition the system from parliamentary to presidential.
Turkish liberals and “disillusioned conservative Kurds” increased the HDP vote, costing the AKP its 12-year parliamentary majority. This only deterred Erdogan briefly; he now seeks to use what he styles the “instability” of the parliamentary system to press his changes again.
As coalition talks drag on, early elections are a distinct possibility. In their run-up, escalating violence in the south east would give his foes opportunity to discredit Demirtas among constituencies fed up with conflict, Turkish and Kurdish alike. Already, mainstream television, heavily influenced by the government, is dominated by funeral scenes of Turkish victims and assessments of Demirtas’s “impotence” in containing PKK violence. AKP can regain a parliamentary majority if the HDP misses the electoral threshold (10%) or a few percentage points of the nationalist vote migrate to AKP from the Nationalist Action Party (MHP)….
Demirtas said Erdogan was intent on ending the peace process once he “saw from the public opinion polls that the process was not going to bring him the votes he needed to establish a presidential system”.
Plenty more interesting details on Turkish and Kurdish politics there, too.
This VOA item is from a few days ago, but makes two interesting points.
In June the AKP lost its parliamentary majority, thanks partly to a strong performance by a pro-Kurdish party. But ruling AKP officials told VOA that polling by the party so far is showing only minor public opinion movements….
Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, criticized the government for its ongoing anti-terror campaign.
He claims the AKP is seeking political gain by creating a perception the country is under existential threat.
It seems the Europeans aren’t the only folks interested in a fair deal for the Kurds. The Jerusalem Post has this by Syrian Kurdish journalist, Turkey’s new Kurdish predicament.
For Ankara to have a strong role in the ever-changing region, it needs to reconcile with the Kurds. Anything less than that would backfire against Turkish interests across the Middle East.
That’s the bottom line, argument and analysis to get there worth a look, IMHO.
Equal time to the Arabic Al Ahram, with Erdogan’s war for votes. You get the intro on this one.
His party’s staggering drop in the polls was because he had not sufficiently courted the Turkish right-wing ultra-nationalists.
This is the conclusion that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has drawn from the country’s June elections, observers say.
Finally, the Eurasia Review has a nice analytical essay as Turkey Enters The Maelstrom.
Turkey has been watching with growing unease the close cooperation between the Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), which is the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) that is affiliated to the PKK….
Further, the tenuous peace between the Kurds and the Turkish Government that had held for nearly two years ended with the Kurdish electoral success. Turkey’s biggest fear now is that the creation of a Kurdish homeland, even with limited autonomy, will subsume parts of its own territories in Anatolia. Therefore the AKP views Kurdish autonomy anywhere in the Middle-East as a greater threat to its security than even the IS.
This all prompts two questions. First, if and when on the elections? You would think Erdogan would want a short campaign of maximum fear. This then sets the parameters on the second question, how good are the Turkmen militia? A long campaign during which ground troops had to be introduced would do Erdogan little good.
Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 14 2015 23:50 utc | 84
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