The Pentagon has confirmed that, in response to Turkish r4equests for military aid in the ongoing invasion of the ISIS city of al-Bab, in northern Syria, US warplanes flew over the city, though they did not conduct any airstrikes or apparently do anything else.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook confirmed the flights were a response to Turkish requests for “air support,” saying they were meant to be “a visible show of force.” Turkey didn’t publicly confirm the overflights, and it isn’t clear from their comments they would’ve seen an overflight as “air support.”
Turkey did, however, get foreign air support yesterday, when Russian warplanes attacked ISIS targets around the outskirts of al-Bab. This was also a surprise, as Turkey had publicly requested help from the US-led coalition, not the Russians, but it is likely the US comments about overflights are meant to emphasize that they did something in al-Bab too.
Al-Bab is just east of the city of Aleppo, and the last ISIS-held city in Aleppo Province. Since their invasion last year, Turkey has captured the bulk of ISIS territory in Aleppo Province, and has said they intend to attack the Kurdish-held city of Manbij as soon as Bab falls.
You don’t expect the United States to attack their own terrorists do you ?
I expect & would support Syrian soldiers to shoot down any foreign aircraft.
As a Korean War veteran, I don’t quite understand the Pentagon’s characterization of a non-deadly “overflight” or a “visible show of force” as being responsive to a “request for air support.” In the olden days, a request for air support meant “get here fast and bomb the hell out of the guys who are shooting at us.” How times have changed — and unfortunately for the worse.
This is not as innocent as it appears. The show of “support” –in the context of the events — looks more like a threat. Turkey has tried and failed to get US to stop working with Kurds in their quest of expanding their territory. Kurds are trying to link their two regions. Contrary to all maps we routinely show in most media, Kurds are a small minority in areas US helped them liberate from ISIS. All such liberated places along Turkish border were then ethnically cleansed, giving Kurds full control. I remember Biden going to Turkey after the failed coup, and pompously telling Kurds to leave Manbij. Of course, they did not. Al-Bab is the key to Kurdish state we keep on promising. Even writing constitution for them, the way we created Kosovo.
It was expected that Kurds were to liberate Al-Bab from ISIS, and if Hillary won, we would have had a war with Turkey. To allow Kurds — a small minority in Al-Bab to occupy it, meant creating a corridor connecting Afrin and Kobani Kurdish areas.
In fact, so sure they were of Hillary’s winn, that articles were published of an all female brigade ready to liberate “their land” from ISIS. The lie about “their land” routinely goes unchallenged. But after some jostling outside Al-Bab, Turkey took initiative, and is clising in on the town. It had a major setback, as it appeared that ISIS had accurate position of their artillery, and went on counterattack, with Turkey suffer