TURKEY/SYRIA
The Saudi-owned al-arabiyya TV station has reported today that Turkish forces have fired on Syrian forces. (that’s Syrian as in the Assad bunch from Damascus). This comes because of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) whom we allied with during the ISIS war and who were forced to make mends with Damascus upon the U.S. withdrawal. In other words, because Assad’s Syrian army has accepted the SDF as a segment of the Syrian Army, they have become the imaginary enemy of Erdogan’s Turkey, since all Kurds and those who support them are Enemies of Turkey in Erdogan’s book.
A week ago, even a few days ago, Arabic news sources were saying that Erdogan’s invasion of North Syria will result in one million to a million and a half new homeless refugees in Syria. Today, these same Arabic sources are saying that Erdogan’s current invasion of North Syria will result in the murder of one million to a million and a half Kurds. Their only sin was in speaking their native language, wearing Turkish clothing, sporting their own flag, and operating Kurdish language media entities.
The Turkish firing upon Syrian forces puts Russia in a serious position. Russia entered the Syrian war for the express purpose of salvaging all Syrian territory for the Assad regime. So, Putin now has to make a choice, does he continue to protect the Assad regime and its claim for “the territorial integrity of Syria,” or does he cave in to the 21st Hitler Erdogan as the U.S. president did. Facts on the ground indicate the latter.
Several years ago, Russia’s chief religious authority, the Patriarch of Moscow, conferred with Putin asking him to make defending a Christianity being systematically exterminated in the region of its birth a key plank of Russia’s foreign policy. Putin responded with “so it shall be.” If he continues his appeasement policy towards Erdogan, that promise to the Russian prelate will go the same way as political opponents of Putin.
Many people in the path of Erdogan’s current ethnic cleansing rampage are Christians, as are most of the people of Kobani, who converted after the desecrations of ISIS. As soon as Russians troops depart that area, those people will all be exterminated–unless they flee now.
In a related event, al-arabiyya has also reported that Russian troops have been escorting SDF fighters out of the area east of the Euphrates that Erdogan has demanded as a “security zone.” This comes as Turkey is threatening to kill any and all “Kurdish fighters” they find in that zone once the “deadline” has passed. By “Kurdish fighters,” of course, Erdogan means all Kurds, Christians, and Yazidis found in his path.
We will return to this theme further down in this report.
WAS A RUSSIAN AIRFIELD USED IN BAGHDADI RAID?
On 28 October, al-arabiyya TV reported that the U.S. aircraft that took part in the raid on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s compound in a small town in N.W. Syria flew out of an airfield just outside of ‘Ayn al-‘Arab. ‘Ayn al-‘Arab is the Arabic name for the Kurdish city of Kobani. Kobani was the city that inflicted the first defeat on the previously unstoppable ISIS jugernaut, and the heroism of their YPG fighters inspired the world and led to the formation of the SDF under U.S. advice.
With the U.S. withdrawal (and the SDF then immediately siding with the Russians and the Damascus forces), Russian forces then moved into Kobani to provide security as the SDF moved out. Thus, any airports or airfields in the vicinity of Kobani would have been under Russian security at the time the U.S. Baghdadi raid took place.
Trump’s ill-advised and precipitous withdrawal from Syria and the granting of a green light to Erdogan to come in and ethnic cleanse whatever areas he wanted to, also forced the U.S. special forces to move up the time table of their attack, because it appears that the Russians are to depart Kobani themselves once all the SDF focrces have left. Turkey might not have been as cooperative as the Russians in terms of letting us use an airfield under their control.
This is why Trump rightly thanked the Russians for their cooperation in the raid, and why Trump critics in the media and politics are 180 degrees wrong for trying to blame Trump for that bit of diplomatic courtesy.
Offering thanks to Turkey, though, might be another matter. Nonetheless, Turkey was pleased with the elimination of al-Baghdadi–even though Turkey was the Godfather of ISIS, as reported previously on this site. Turkey was incensed when al-Baghdadi declared himself to be the Caliph, a title that was supposed to be reserved for his ”holiness” Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The death of al-Baghdadi means that now there is only one Caliph, and Erdogan can now proceed with the next phase of his plan to restore the Ottoman Empire Caliphate.
TURKEY’S NEXT MOVE
As Turkey’s ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Muslim Brotherhood thugs called the “Free Syrian Army” kidnap, murder, and desecrate their way through Kurdish villages–even writing their names on the doors of Kurdish homes they plan to take over for themselves once the Kurds have been ethnic cleansed–Erdogan has changed the name of for his pan-terrorists militia. He now calls it the “Syrian National Army.”
Hey! I thought that President Assad’s army was the National Army of Syria? What gives?
Erdogan has a tendency to telegraph his next moves. For example, before he ordered Trump to jettison the SDF and let him establish his “security zone” himself, he began making comments to the effect that the joint U.S.-Turkish patrols were not working (even though they were). This was a signal that he was going to tell Trump to get lost and take over the “security zone” himself. Before that, Erdogan commented that if he “had to” he would “Cyprusize” the areas he wanted if he didn’t get his way through “diplomacy” (i.e. threats).
To “Cyprusize” areas of Northern Syria was a referrence to what Turkey did to Cyprus way back in 1974 when America had another Republican president that the Democrats had placed under “impeachment watch.” Turkey staged a naked invasion with jet fighters, paratroopers, special forces, etc. to ethnic cleanse 1/4 of Cypriot territory, repopulate it with Turks and create a new puppet state for Turkey. In the process they murdered, raped, and pillaged the Greek inhabitants who had lived there for 3,000 years.
This is the same behavior that Turkey is engaging in with regards to N. Syria.
Erdogan has thus telegraphed his next move by changing the title of his terrorist militia.
Calling it the “Syrian National Army” is a signal that he plans to use this “army” to take over the rest of Syria in the not too distant future–whereupon it will become, in fact, the new National Army of Syria.
To aid in this endeavor, Erdogan will round up and “arrest” the estimated 30,000 fighters who went underground in Syria and Iraq, as well as the thousands more who escaped prisons the Kurds were guarding now that the U.S. withdrawal and the Turkish invastion has forced the Kurds to depart their guard positions.
Turkey’s “arrest” of these thousands of terrorists will win the praise of the world and win Turkey forgiveness for all its genocidal sins. Then Turkey will recycle these “arrested” terrorists into new militia groups with new names, and new uniforms, and attach them to Erdogan’s ever expanding “Syrian National Army.” And, those will be the military shock troops who will spearhead to coming full invasion of all of Syria as Erdogan seeks ever more “security zones.”
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE IRANIANS?
Reports have anywhere from 80,000 to 200,000 Iranians now in Syria in what amounts to a full-scale occupation. Many of those 200,000 Iranians are civilians from rural areas in Iran that the Mullah’s have transported to Syria where they’ve taken over the homes of Syrians who are now refugees in Europe.
So, the question is, if Turkey moves to conquer the rest of Syria once it has completely digested its “security zone” in N. Syria, won’t that lead to a war between Turkey and Iran? Wouldn’t that be a wonder thing for the West? To have these two rogue states killing each other off? It would be . . . except:
ERDOGAN’S OLIVE BRANCH TO IRAN
An editorial in Iran’s Fars News, an organ of the Mullah’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) has recently lavished praise on Erdogan and noted that he provided free land and a check for one million U.S. dollars for a huge Zayn al-Abadin (a Shi’a saint) mosque in Istanbul.
Not only that, but Erdogan also personally joined 500,000 Shi’a in Istanbul in “mourning the death of the 7th century Imam Hussein.”
WHAT THIS MEANS
You have a hard core Sunni Islamist kissing up to hard core Shi’a Islamists and vice versa. What gives?’
Erdogan’s ruling AKP party is a clone of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). When Egyptian Hasan al-Banna formed the MB in 1928 he saw it as an umbrella organization for all Muslims, rather than just a specifically Sunni organization. This is why the al-Qaeda organization of MB alum ‘Usama bin Laden was able to coordinate with Iran in the preparations for 9/11.
This is why the MB president of Egypt (2012-2012) was able to begin seeking an alliance with Iran before being deposed. This is why MB-supporting Qatar has found it easy to form an alliance with Shi’a Iran, as well as with Sunni Turkey.
Therefore, with regards to Erdogan’s next move to take over Syria, Erdogan is telling Iran that “we can do this together.” The implications being that they will be allies in the establishing of a new pan-Islamic Caliphate.
SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE PUTIN?
Is Putin going to just stand by and watch Turkey gobble up the rest of his Syrian ally?
Given Putin’s above-mentioned behavior the answer is probably “yes.”
What does Putin really want with Syria?
Putin entered the Syrian war only reluctantly, and only after dire pleadings from Iran. Russia had a naval base near Latakia in N.W. Syria, which, of course, he wanted to preserve. But before entering the war he squeezed a few more concessions out of Assad. He was able to expand that naval base while adding a modern airbase near by, and other airbase further inland. In addition Assad had to cede Syria’s oil rights in Syrian territorial waters to Russia.
My analysis tells me that if Putin looks the other way while Erdogan annexes the rest of Syria, that Erdogan will allow him to keep these military bases and the oil rights. Erdogan can also apply additional pressure through the thousands of “Grey wolves” members spread throughout the Turkic-speaking former Soviet Union Republics of Central Asia that ring Russia’s southern border.
Besides, Turkey is a member of NATO, so that even if Russia wanted to go to war against Turkey, it couldn’t because that would force an automatic response by NATO. Thus, both Putin and his American counterpart are being manipulated by Erdogan because of Turkey’s NATO membership–to the detriment of the entire human race, as will become apparent when Erdogan’s new Syrian tragedy unfolds.
OTHER MIDEAST NEWS
The Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’aad Hariri has resigned after several days of protests by the people of Lebanon, most recently a human chain they formed extending from the southern part of the country to the northern, and passing through the capital of Beirut.
Nasurallah, the thugish head of the terror group Hizbollah has issued veiled and not so veiled threats of a civil war should the protesters succeed in bringing down the Hizbollah-subservient government.
Iraq has also been experiencing an “Arab Spring 2.0” with Shi’a and Sunni alike participating and chanting ash-sha’ab yoreed asqaat an-nizhaam (the people want to bring down the regime), which was the exact wording of the original Arab Spring in 2011.
Algeria has been experiencing “Arab Spring 2.0” since last spring, and it appears that when and if elections are ever held, that a Muslim Brotherhood-type party will likely win.
Coincidently, or not, the MB clone an-nahdhah party in Tunisia won parliamentary elections a couple of months ago and is putting together an Islam-friendly government. Then, just a couple of weeks ago a college professor with a fondness for Islam has won the presidential elections.
The civil war in Libya continues full bore between the Tripoli government supported by Turkey and Qatar, and the Libyan National Army out of Benghazi supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
The sum of the developments and chaos in all of these countries, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria, might provide opportunities for Erdogan to reconstitute the Old Ottoman Empire, or least some key parts of it–especially if he is successful in gobbling up the rest of Syria.
Usama bin Laden once said that “people will follow the strong horse,” and right now, with the U.S. and Russian surrenders in Syria, Erdogan and Turkey are seen as “the strong horse.” Aljazeera.net has recently posted articles heaping lavish praise upon Erdogan with precisely that tone.
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Barry Webb has logged a 25-year career as an Arabist for the NSA, has two MA degrees in related subject matter, and is currently a Senior Fellow with Americans for Intelligence Reform www.intelreform.org. He is the author of Confessions of an (ex) NSA spy: Why America and its Allies are Losing the War on Terror. His website is www.barrywebbauthor.com
