Thanks , am fixing the typo now.*dissent
Which I mention only because it was genuinely confusing until I realized what you intended.
I think this moves Erdogan close to the top in most categories in that other thread.
Turkish backed forces in Afrin in a video with a slain female fighter who appears to have her breats cut off.
I call bullshit on that claim. Is it something that could happen? Definitely, but in this instance it's propaganda by Kurdish media and Reuters seems to be pushing the same narrative. When this first happened the video wouldn't load for me but now it does, and it shows that the ypg fighter was killed by an explosion. Her breasts weren't cut off, they were disfigured by the explosion. A FSA fighter steps on where her breast used be for some reason and then he gets told off. The video is ~10 seconds long and I can pm it if you want to check yourself but its NSFL.Confirmation today:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ed-by-turkey-backed-rebels-idUSKBN1FM2LX?il=0
Fucking disgusting.
AT-5 manages to find a tank not made of cardboard.
edit: CNN Turk reports 5 soldiers "martyred" when tank struck by ATGM.
Another one strikes a vehicle next to what I assume to be a border outpost.
I read someone's estimation that the ypg must have 200-300 atgms. I can believe that they are buying more or getting them transferred to Afrin from Rojava.Rebels caught a truck on route to Afrin with a rather large shipment of ATGMs and other weapons. Could be from anyone really.
Turkish Leopard destoyed by a ATGM hit.
Turkish Patton destroyed.
Syriac Military council also arrived. I wonder how many fighters have come. The US has said that any groups who go to Afrin lose US support and will have to give back their supplied weapons.Lots of fighters deployed from SDF held eastern Syria to Afrin including Yazidi militias.
I haven't really been paying attention to the conflict lately so I will look into this more. At a glance what people have said happened was that a 500 strong force of SAA "ISIS Hunters" backed by tanks and artillery was directlly headed to Conoco (the oil company?) and was attacked in response. The SAA losses range from 25-215 and seem to include Russian PMC's. Like I said I will look into this later to better understand what happned.Not good.
US military strikes pro-regime forces in Syria after coming under attack
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/07/politics/us-strikes-pro-regime-forces-syria/index.html
(CNN)The US-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria conducted strikes against pro-regime forces in Syria Wednesday, the coalition said in a statement.
The coalition said the strikes were carried out after forces allied to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "initiated an unprovoked attack" against a well-established Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters where coalition advisers were working with US-backed Syrian fighters.
A US official told CNN that the attackers crossed the Euphrates River and were armed with artillery and other weapons. The US official said that US forces in the region counterattacked using artillery and aircraft.
(CNN)The US-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria conducted strikes against pro-regime forces in Syria Wednesday, the coalition said in a statement.
The coalition said the strikes were carried out after forces allied to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "initiated an unprovoked attack" against a well-established Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters where coalition advisers were working with US-backed Syrian fighters.
A US official told CNN that the attackers crossed the Euphrates River and were armed with artillery and other weapons. The US official said that US forces in the region counterattacked using artillery and aircraft.
The official added that no US personnel were killed or wounded in the engagement.
The official added that it was unclear exactly who the pro-regime forces were but the US is looking into whether Russian contractors operating in the vicinity might have been involved but added that there is no direct evidence yet that the Russians fired on the Syrian Democratic Forces facility where the US advisers were located. The official said they have not ruled out that Iranian backed-forces might have also been involved in the attack.
"In defense of coalition and partner forces, the coalition conducted strikes against attacking forces to repel the act of aggression against partners engaged in the Global Coalition's defeat-Daesh mission," the coalition statement said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
The coalition said the attack took place in the Middle Euphrates River Valley, eight kilometers east of the agreed upon "de-confliction" line which is designed to separate Russian-backed regime troops and US-backed forces in Syria.
The Turkish government, has criminalized dissent , arresting those who are publicly critical of the Turkish military offensive in Syria.
The leftwing HDP party is pro minority rights , egalitarian and pro feminism. The party is allied with the Kurdish DBP party. The leader of the HDP criticized the Turkish offensive in Afrin Syria, resulting in the Erdogan gov. issuing an arrest warrant for his arrest.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/turkey-orders-arrest-pro-kurdish-party-leader-agency-093940819.html
Erdogan again showing his ethnic tribal agenda. He is an ethnic Turk nationalist, who sees the Kurds as a threat. Being an Islamist does not preclude one from being a racial / ethnic nationalist. Both the Allies and the Germans were White supremacist but they still couldn't agree on who gets control over what. In the same way, the secular military regime that ruled Turkey were Turkish nationalists, but so to is Erdogan.
The MiddleEast ain't going to do away with its ethnic and sectarian chauvinism within our lifetimes. Turkey is a country with a MiddleEastern mindset. Turkey's support for Erdogan exposed Western delusions about Turkey. Europe has to be dumber than dumb and suicidal to let Turkey inside the gates. Instead of Western Europe changing the tribal mindset of the Turks, the Turks and other MENA folk will change Western Europe , forcing Western Europe to regress to time when clannishness and tribalism was the norm. So called anti-racists and Muslims within Europe will scream "racism" and "Islamophobia" while hypocritically advocating for a xenophobic and racist mindset.
With the high Kurdish birthrate (relative to non-Kurds in Turkey), the greedy Turks may have to contend sharing all of Turkey with the Kurds, because they can't stand an independent Kurdistan. Sort of like Israel; where Israeli greed for the West Bank has pretty much destroyed an independent Palestine. Resulting in Israel having to accept the Palestinians inside a single Israeli state. Malaysia on the other hand did the smart thing and allowed ethnic Chinese majority Singapore to break away.
It was Allah's will !ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish army helicopter was shot down by Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters near the north Syrian town of Afrin, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday and the Turkish military said two soldiers on board the aircraft died.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ia-in-syrias-afrin-erdogan-idUSKBN1FU0M3?il=0
In this day and age and considering the Kurdish population, Turkey can't do it.Do you forget population transfer? Turks have done it before are experts at it. Will be hard though so many turkeys kurds. Does Erdogan want them to obey him or her want them expelled?
Also Turkey is in Nato wow
He can be out for himself and out for ethnic Turkish interests. Erdogan has been imploring Turks to get their birthrate up.In some ways I think Erdogan is just the natural consequence of Turkish strongman politics most embodied in the likes of Ataturk who himself was not exactly very keen on tolerating dissent. Notice how he's not only marginalized the Kurds but he's even eclipsed his own party. The guy's out for himself.
Assad has been consistently outplaying Turkey the US and Saudi Arabia for years now holding a weaker hand.
Time to stop being lazy. I'm so behind on the updates that I still haven't caught up to the events currently happening, mainly concerning the US-SAA confrontation in Deir Ezzor and the Israeli jet shootdown situation.
I call bullshit on that claim. Is it something that could happen? Definitely, but in this instance it's propaganda by Kurdish media and Reuters seems to be pushing the same narrative. When this first happened the video wouldn't load for me but now it does, and it shows that the ypg fighter was killed by an explosion. Her breasts weren't cut off, they were disfigured by the explosion. A FSA fighter steps on where her breast used be for some reason and then he gets told off. The video is ~10 seconds long and I can pm it if you want to check yourself but its NSFL.
What a huge explosion. That's must be one of the biggest tank explosions in the war.
I read someone's estimation that the ypg must have 200-300 atgms. I can believe that they are buying more or getting them transferred to Afrin from Rojava.
Syriac Military council also arrived. I wonder how many fighters have come. The US has said that any groups who go to Afrin lose US support and will have to give back their supplied weapons.
A Turkish ATAK helicopter crashed in Hatay after being shot down with a MANPAD. Both pilots died.
Civilian convoy evacuating elderly and children from Afrin. All the video shows though is a long line of empty vehicles so its not really proof.
2000 civilians or 2000 fighters?
http://theregion.org/article/12766-ypg-says-2-000-civilians-not-fighters-travelled-to-afrin
The people who control the border crossings in this war sure get to make a lot of money.
I've skimmed these humanitarian reports and I think that the only IDP's allowed to leave Afrin were people who weren't originally from there. I will give these a proper read later. Posting for anyone else who wants to read them.
https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian...pments-northwestern-syria-idleb-governorate-0
https://www.humanitarianresponse.in...elopments_in_north-western_syria_20180130.pdf
https://www.humanitarianresponse.in...nts_in_north-western_syria_20180207_final.pdf
FSA buries the bodies of YPG fighters after Islamic funeral rites
EDIT: Forgot this. It's funny how they feel the need to yell Allah Akbar while destroying bottles. If they cant enjoy alcohol they want to make sure nobody can.
I think this is the second FSA technical that has been destroyed with an atgm
Guy in the video says the APC was destroyed by a mine
I haven't really been paying attention to the conflict lately so I will look into this more. At a glance what people have said happened was that a 500 strong force of SAA "ISIS Hunters" backed by tanks and artillery was directlly headed to Conoco (the oil company?) and was attacked in response. The SAA losses range from 25-215 and seem to include Russian PMC's. Like I said I will look into this later to better understand what happned.
An Israeli Jet was shot down after conducting airstrikes in Syria and crashed in the Golan heights. The pilots ejected and one is in hospital in serious condition. A pro syrian twitter user claims he has passed. The incident started when an Iranian drone was shot down in the Golan heights and Israel launched sorties in response. I think now they are launching cruise missles and maybe further airstrikes against Syria. I'll update on this some time later. I already spent ages compiling the Afrin section of this post and am burned out on Syria related stuff for now.
a) Would Turkey really kick the US/UK out of Turkey over this?
b) IF yes, could we not have a base in shiny new Kurdistan?
c) Why would we want nukes 70 miles from the Syrian border anyway?
nope....never trust a nato-member...Isn't Turkey Assads ally as far as the Kurds go?
I'm confused.
Isn't Turkey Assads ally as far as the Kurds go?
I'm confused.
Turkey and Assad use eachother to get what they want regarding the PYD/YPG. In Afrin I believe Turkey would like to capture the whole area but they went into the operation knowing that this wouldn't be a likely outcome due to negotiations between the YPG and Syrian Government. This collage from Reddit is of different scenarios that could end up happening. Right now it seems like Scenario 4 is going to be the end result but with much less area under TFSA control.