As President Recep Erdogan announced the start of a Turkish operation in northeastern Syria on Wednesday, Oct. 9, the Kurdish-led SDF reported that Turkish warplanes were striking civilian areas. Erdogan stated that he wants to create “a safe haven cleared of Kurdish militias to house a million Syrian refugees.”
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Turkish army’s short-term goal is to establish a 100km long security belt, 30km deep, along the Syrian-Turkish border. (See attached map.) At the moment, Turkish air strikes are directed against Kurdish YPG militia’s bases and ammunition stores, while shelling them from across the border. The Turkish air force is also bombing Ras al-Ayn in the Hasakeh region east of the River Euphrates. Turkish ground forces and tanks crossed into Syria Wednesday night.
Kurdish reports of Turkish aerial bombardment appeared to be inflated in the hope of bringing the Americans to their aid before the Turkish army crossed over. In the initial stage of the offensive, our military sources don’t expect Erdogan to overshoot the limits of the security zone, on whose creation he and President Donald Trump agreed in their phone call on Saturday, Oct. 7. It was after that call, that Trump announced the withdrawal of around 100 US troops from two observation posts in northeast Syria out of the way of the Turkish plan. This decision was sharply and widely criticized. He also warned Erdogan that he would “obliterate” the Turkish economic if the Kurds were attacked.
There were a number of military movements related to Syria in the course of 10-9-19 Yom Kippur:
- Iran has embarked on an unannounced large-scale military exercise on its border with Turkey, with the participation of special forces, Iranian chief of staff Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi announced.
- A small US force made its way to the north Syrian town of Kobani near Aleppo to head off a possible Turkish attack. The force consists of six US armored vehicles.
- Pro-Turkish Turkmani militias have massed near the Syrian-Turkish border to support the forthcoming Turkish assault on Tal Abyad.
This map distorts the width of the zone. Syria is enormous. Since the zone is only 20 miles wide, if drawn to scale, it would appear very narrow. The Turkey/Syria border is 510 miles long. Thus the width of the corridor should be only 4% of the length. Th map makes it look like a large part of Syria. It isn’t.
Looks like Trump had a strategy in leaving Syria. Quagmire Iran.
Another Jerusalem Post “breaking news” piece clarifying U.S. position about possible Turkish atrocities
Obviously, this was Trump’s most serious miscalculation. He should never have accepted at face value Erdogan’s claim that he would deal with ISIS. Instead, he should have insisted that Erdogan allow the U.S. to take cusody of the ISIS prisoners and take them somewhere by plane where they couldn’t do any harm (Guantanamo? Better still, Poland, where the CIA has some kind of “facility” for people like them). Erdogan has always got along pretty well with ISIS. He will now recruit them for his Sunni Arab paramilitary army in Syria and use them to fight the Kurds, whom ISIS of course hates.
Still, once it becomes clear that that is happening, the U.S. will have the option of imposing sanctions on Erdogan, including an end to all arms supplies. He could even order the USAF to bomb positions where iSIS fighters were active, even if that meant killing Turkish troops who were fighting alongside the ISIS men–perhaps after warning Erdogan in advance they he wouold do that, even if some turkish soldiers were killed as “collatoral damage.” However, it would be out of character for Trump, who is a “dove” at heart, to do that.
It seems that I was wrong that the Kurds could work with Damascus to solve the ISIS problem. Someone (Russia?) seems to have got to Damascus and persuaded Assad to back off from offending the Turks.
This is a very complex game, and I hope our chess-masters are up to it. Trump’s abandoning of the Kurds in Syria is either a bone-headed move, or he’s got something up his sleve. I suspect this pull-out is part of a larger strategy.
Consider: Iran strongly objects to the Turkish incursion into Syria, and has responded by holding military exercises on its border with Turkey. If Iran were to attack Turkey, wouldn’t that require a response from NATO? At the very least, Turkey and Iran could tie each other up in a regional conflict, and who knows, maybe a “Kurdistan” could emerge from the melee.
Egypt has denounced the Turkish invasion, and has called a meeting of the Arab League to discuss it.
Having Turkey on the outs with both the Arab League and Iran might not be the worst thing for the U.S. and Israel.
Qatar is protected by Turkish troops. But it is also allied to Iran.if relations between Iran and Turkey deteriorate, Turkey may withdraw its troops from Qatar. That, wouldn’t be the worst thing for the U.S., Israel, and the other Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia.
It just occurred to me that the Kurds have a much more practical means of dealing with the ISIS prisoner problem. They could simply hand them over to Assad’s men. The Kurds have had reasonably cordial relations with Damascus, despite important differences with it, throughout most of the Syrian civil reporter. It has bee reported that the Kurds have been in communication with Assad since Turkey announced its invasion of Syria.
If they do hand the prisoners over to Assad, who has no hesitation whatever about murdering tens of thousands of people, he will make short work of them. Assad dislikes ISIS because they are allied with his Sunni Arab enemies, as well as Turkey, which Assad dislikes, and because ISIS men have sometimes clashed with Assad’s soldiers. That at any rate would be the smart thing for the Kurds to do.
The Jeruslem Post has reported today that the Syrian move has provoked a menacing, warning response from Iran.
If Turkey does free the ISIS prisoners, Trump still has some options.He could insist that Turkey allow the U.S. aircraft at Incerlik to bomb ISIS positions, and keep Turkish planes out of the area when he does.He could suspend all military aid to Turkey and impose economic sanctions if Turkey refuses to comply. He has already warned the Turks there will be severe sanctions if Turkish forces cause any casualties to Americans.
The Kurds could probably march the ISIS prisoners to some desert location still under their control and quietly dispose of them if they choose to do so. They could also hand them over to the Iraqi Shi’ite regime , which maintains troops on the Syrian border in the desert area, for similar “special handling.”They could even hand them over to the Iranians, who have soldiers in both Syria and Iraq. The Iranians don’t much care for ISIS, who are Sunnis, and they might hold them as prisoners or kill them.
Of course the Kurds may not wish to provoke international opprobrium against themby doing this. And the U.S. is unlikely to ask them to do this. Still, that would be the smart move by both the Kurds and the U.S.
“Trump issues dire warning to Turkey over Syria invasion
President Trump says he will ‘wipe out’ Turkey’s economy if President Erdogan wipes out the Kurds.
Arutz Sheva Staff, 10/10/19 13:11”
Everyone should listen to Trump’s press conference on the Syrian-Kurdish-Turkish situation , broadcast on Fox News and then rebroadcast by Arutz Sheva today. I think Trump gives a quite lucid explanation of his policy towards Kurdistan and its rationale. To me at any rate, it makes a ot of sense. The list of it is that the the Turks are absolutely determined to attack the Kurds and the U.S. doesn’t have the boots on the ground to stop them. And he doesn’t want the U.S. to have a lot of American troops stationed in the area any more. And he doesn’t want U.S. troops to keep fighting wars in the mIddle East. He points out that he has said this over and over again, beginning with the 2016 Presidential election.
He also reiterated that he is prepared to impose economic sanctions on Turkey if they behave inhumanely.
He predicts that the Kurds will continue to hold the ISIS prisoners, and if they don’t, the Turks will (I think he is wrong about this last point, however). He said that the U.S. has already “removed” a small group of “very dangerous” ISIS prisoners, and that these are now in U.S. custody (he didn’t say where he has put them).