Turkey in Syria & ISIS (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

Stranger than fiction? Turkey's position has been challenged, now we have this report for March 2014: Wiretaps reveal Turkey's attacks on Syrian regime positions:

Court documents reveal that last year, when the Syrian opposition captured the Armenian town of Kassab, the Turkish army shelled the Syrian army.

Link:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...armenian.html?

[davidbfpo]

The NYT reports that Turkish forces entered Syria and evacuated the garrison at the tomb and the tomb's contents:

The Turkish Army launched an operation into Syria to evacuate soldiers guarding the Tomb of Suleyman Shah, which has been besieged by Islamic State militants, and move the tomb’s remains, an official and Turkish news media reported on Sunday.The military then destroyed what was left of the site to prevent the militants from using the enclave, and one soldier was killed by accident during the operation, CNN Turk said Sunday, citing military officials.
The operation, called “Sah Firat,” began on Saturday and involved a large convoy of tanks and other heavy weaponry that entered Syria through Kobani....

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/wo...orts-say.html?

The BBC has a report, with some footage of the returning Turkish convoy and this:

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the remains of Suleyman Shah would be moved elsewhere in Syria.

[davidbfpo]

A thorough joint commentary by a RUSI SME and 'Turkey Wonk':https://turkeywonk.wordpress.com/201...-implications/

It is interesting to note the tomb's new home is in the "grey zone" in Syria @ Eshme village; the zone is a narrow area where local rebel groups do not exert full control.

From the conclusion:

Turkey, however, has proven yet again that its role in the Syrian conflict must not be overlooked. It has links to all the main actors operating in northern Syria and is able to generally get its way with most of them, albeit with the occasional disagreement. The biggest change appears to be Ankara’s approach to ISIS. Since 2013, Turkey had treated ISIS as an irritant, rather than a major security threat, but the Suleyman Shah operation is the clearest sign to date that this approach is changing.

They conclude that Turkey's role will remain limited.

[davidbfpo]

Yesterday 'National Interest' had an article 'Turkey's Secret Proxy War in Libya?', which ends almost with:

If Turkey were backing Libya’s jihadists, it would fit a dangerous pattern of Turkish support to extremist regional actors.

Link:http://nationalinterest.org/feature/...ar-libya-12430

Then today Al-Monitor has a Turkish author writing 'Pakistan warns Turkey: Don’t make our mistakes', citing a Pakistani politician:

I warned Davutoglu when he was here, ‘You are repeating in Syria the mistakes we made in Afghanistan. Organizations you support now will turn against you.’ Pakistan was wrong in becoming party to the war in Afghanistan and was wrong in supporting the Taliban. We are now paying the costs of these mistakes."

Link:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...mistakes.html?

[davidbfpo]

Turkey's decisions this week to "come off the fence" has been welcomed by some and a few have wondered if bombing ISIS & the PKK is helpful.

The Soufan Group's viewpoint:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrie...islamic-state/

The BBC's Turkey correspondent:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33664269

[davidbfpo]

Two reminders that history dating back to the Ottoman era's conflict with extremist Muslim, the Ikhwan and Salafi tradition, has an impact today. Then the Turkish dam building programme and the impact of flooding on the PKK.

History:http://nationalinterest.org/feature/...nst-isis-13412

Water:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...-of-dams.html?

[JWing]

Looks like Turkey's new policy is to create a safe zone in a small section of northern Syria which will protect rebels it backs there and defend an important border crossing from falling into PYD hands. One wave of bombing in Syria was to hit IS supply areas near a rebel command center in that area. Striking PYD & PKK targets appears to be a bigger concern as Erdogan opposes any kind of Syrian autonomous region in northern Syria which is already de facto come into being.