This is a watershed moment. If the Sunnis succeed with Turkey’s support in overthrowing Assad who is Alawite (20% of pop.), it will signal the end of the Turkey’s romance with Iran. No longer will we be looking at an alliance betwwen Shiite and Sunni. We will have returned to the Sunni/Shiite divide. S. Arabia which is fighting Shiites in Bahrain will be thrilled. Hezbollah, which is Shiite, not so much. An alliance between the Sunni regimes of of Turkey, Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will steal the thunder from Iran and will present Israel with a new ME and not in a good sense. Ted Belman
It took Syrian president six days to send troops and tanks to punish the small northern town of Jisr a-Shughour near the Turkish border for attacking and killing 120 Syrian security personnel last Monday. Although thousands of residents fled, the operation which began Friday June 10 ran into stiff resistance. Syrian TV later reported that security forces had arrested a large number of “armed group” leaders responsible for “violent acts” and wounded and killed many more – “despite the numerous ambushes set up against the army units.” Refugees report a major purge is taking place in the defiant town and its buildings leveled. According to some reports, the soldiers are shooting defectors.
Saturday night, June 11, the US accused Syria, of creating a humanitarian crisis and urged it to stop offensive – still avoiding any reference to President Bashar Assad by name as the party responsible for the crisis.
It took Assad several days to attack Jisr a-Shughour because he couldn’t decide which unit to send to the rebellious town:[..]
The small border town has acquired strategic importance way beyond its size and location – and not only as a potential tipping point for the uprising against the Assad regime.
The battles there will impinge on how the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan fares in the general election Sunday, June 12 and the Muslim Brotherhood’s position in the Arab Revolt (Jisr a-Shughour is one of its bastions). Iran, as President Assad’s foremost ally, has a stake there, especially after Saudi military intervention stalled its push into the Gulf Emirates on the backs of Shiite protesters.
Erdogan is generally expected to achieve a major election victory in his run for a third term in office after 10 years – and even possibly a majority in parliament for reforming the constitution to unite the posts of prime minister and president.
He can boast of important achievements in his 10 years in office, but is after the major triumph of acknowledgement as head of the paramount Muslim power. A Sunni Muslim rebel win against Assad’s Iran- and Hizballah-backed forces in the Battle of Jisr a-Shughour would show that Erdogan played the right horse after failing to ride the wind of protest in the Arab world.
Its eruption threw the bloc formed by Turkey, with Iran, Syria and Hizballah onto the wrong side of the Arab revolt. The Turkish prime minister played no role in the Egyptian uprising and, in Libya, both Muammar Qaddafi and the Benghazi rebel government Benghazi scorned his feelers for influence when they saw him gyrating between going with NATO of which Turkey is a member, siding with Qaddafi and aiding the rebels.
The Turkish prime minister’s decision to send troops into to Syria and establish a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the border (as DEBKfile first reported Friday, June 10) is a gamble which places him in opposition to Tehran, spells finis to the Turkish-Iranian pact and ends his hopes of acting as a bridge between Sunnis and Shiites.
Sunni Muslims across the Middle East are watching the battle of Jisr a-Shughour and assessing the numbers of Sunni defections from the Syrian army fighting their coreligionists there. If they are substantial and spill over into military units in other parts of Syria, this battle could become the tipping-point of the uprising against Bashar Assad. It would also be the Muslim Brotherhood’s first military achievement since the Arab Revolt began, after holding themselves aloof from the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya.
With a view of Niagara that nobody has.
And on a clear day you can see Alcatraz.
You can learn a lot from Lydia.
KF #7,
Magog is listed among nations in modern day Turkey: Gomer (the Cimerii) on the Baltic coast of Turkey, Meschech and Tubal in central Turkey. Beth Togarmah was, of course, in the far eastern region of Turkey. “Gog” was also probably Gyges, the founder of the last house of Lydia, in western Turkey. “Lydia” was a geographical term, derived from earlier inhabitants, the “Ludim”. The country there in Ezekiel’s day was derived from Into-European Hittite invaders. The term “Hittite” was also a geographical term, corresponding to the modern “Anatollia”. The original inhabitants, which the Bible describes as descendants of Canaan, were represented by the “Neo-Hittites of NW Syria and S. Turkey. They spoke a non-Indo-European language.
The modern Turks are descended from the Osmanlis, who invaded Anatolia with the Seljuks, and originally established themselves in the central plateau. After the withdrawal of Mongolian invaders, they emerged as the most powerful force in the area, and overran the Greeks, Armenians and other Turkish peoples around them. They mixed heavily with the original inhabitants, so that the percentage of identifiably “Turkish” DNA is miniscule; but their language replaced Greek, which had been dominant before them. Racially, though, the Turks are essentially the same people talked about in Ezekiel 38: Magog, Gomer, Tubal and Meshech.
By the way, “Javan”, which is Hebrew for the “Greeks”, specifically refers to the Ionians, Greek colonists on the Turkish coast of the Aegean; and “Tiras”, another son of Japheth, has been identified with the Trojans of NW Turkey. The latter have been postulated, on linguistic grounds, to have been the ancestors of the Etruscans of Italy; and the Ionians are identified with the remnant Greeks who were driven out of Turkey after World War I.
Nothing in bible about Turkey only Iran, Libya, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Greece with the standard Russia and China. Turkey was part of the Persian Empire. Today seen will open some in the middle of a norhern Kingdom and southern kingdom (formerly greek states of Alexander’s empire) then some king will rise out of this.
I wouldn’t automatically conclude that. Turkey has been Sunni since Ottoman times, and Iran has been Shi’a for centuries; but their “romance” began a few years ago, when they both knew it was to be a “mixed marriage”: Syria had nothing to do with the romance, and it has nothing to do with it today. If anything, Turkey is replacing Iran as the obviously paramount Islamic power in the region. I say “obviously”, because it has been so all along.
The Turks don’t want the Kurdish rebellion in southwestern Turkey to be reignited. If throwing Baby Assad to the wolves ensures quiet there, then they’ll do it.
Assad’s failure to crush the rebellion signals the beginning of the end of his Alawite-Ba’ath dictatorship. If he can’t control a small town on the border with Turkey, what can he control?
The Syrian Emperor appears increasingly naked.
Turkey wants Hatay province back. Besides, only Turkey can do anything to “reform” Syria, so let them do it alone as long as the Kurds do not get hurt.
More proof that islam is a blight on the earth. The muslim world is unproductive, uncivilized and in constant violent upheaval.
Very little of what is written in Debka is factually true, and what is truthful is generally exagerated for purposes of sensationalism. Assad will do whatever it takes to stay in power, and I mean whatever it takes. Turkey won’t do a thing, unless thousands and thousands flee into its territory, in which case, Turkey will shoot them. But to suggest that Turkey will actively fight Syria in a war to depose, or aid in the removal, of Assad, is ridiculous.