There aren’t a lot of huge rebel factions left in Syria after years of war, but two extant groups along the northern border, the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), are increasingly at odds over territory in the Afrin District.
Turkey took most of Afrin from the Kurds originally, and has been fighting them ever since. On Saturday, the HTS took the villages of Basufan, Qabasin, and Fafertin away from the SNA, and has sent more fighters to the area.
Turkey is trying to broker talks on the matter, but so far that’s not achieving much, and the SNA has responded with a lot of reinforcements, and warning the Islamists to keep their distance.
Afrin isn’t hugely valuable territory, and Turkey’s priority right now is fighting the Kurds, not making peace with an al-Qaeda-linked faction. Still, they don’t want to see their territories in Syria fall apart.
There is no obvious resolution to the rebel split here, as neither side can really fight the Syrian Army anymore, and Turkey is trying to keep Syria from wiping them out. This leaves the groups fighting over what is ultimately a small and ever-shrinking territory.
If one does not have a firm grip in who is who -/ interpretations like this one are bound to happen.
Afrin was occupied by YPG Kurds, who engmforced visa regime so that Syrians who had property there had hard time getting in. Afrin is Kurd majority enclave. YPG is a branch of Turkey Kurd PKK organization. US supported their secessionists ambitions, as SDF Kurds were taking over ISIS occupied land, tgere was hope that Afrin will be reconnectedto other Kurdish areas.
But most important role Afrin and YPG olayedvwas weapons smuggling from Turkey PKK weapons runners to Idllib.
Let me defiine IDLIB. Many militant groups that were not tied to a community could not be reintegrated, and ooted to go to Idlib. Why Idlib? Because the best funded and suported from the West group was HTS. Remenber White Helmets lionizing in the West? The grouo started as fake Al-Qaeda, renamed into Nusra Front and then a more antiseptic HTS. Their claim to fame is the attrocities in Aleppo. Even though Nusra was suposedly DEFENDING population! As far as I know HRS iz financed from Western covert siurces.
To cintrol HRS -/ withouth having to go and militarily defeat them. Military option is dangerous to Turkey, as it woukd create refugee crisis.
Turkey had from the beginning taking over former US project, Free Syrian Army. Funding ceased and groups splintered. Turkey was coopting them in order to kurb HTS and to finght against Kurd YPG.
HTS is still — due to Western push in UN — receivinv
UN food aid, and iz using UN aid to coommand loyalty of some grouos.
Assuming correctly that Russia and Turkey are preoccupied with Ukraine, HRS is attacking Turkey affiliated groups. By getting into Afrin, they are clearly trying to reestablish old gun-running operations by PKK Kurds in Turkey. As the border in Hassakah region is not controlled by Syria or Turkey, abd US sponsored SDF is operating there — weapons can easily bevtrabsfered there, then PKK distributs accross the border.
It may have beebn a mistake to let HDS stay in the area, and chance tto defeat them were missed. And now, Western intelligence will invest in their attempt to defeat Turkey assiciated groups, and create a weapins smuggling corridor. HTS will create major probkendms — back to taking populatiion hostage, stage chemucal events, etc.
Turkey may recinsider military option beforr HRS gets rearmed.
It’s mind twisting. Erdogan is acting like a hyena in the Lion King. He’s using his power over the Bosphorus and NATO’s Sweden/Finland membership decision to blackmail Russia. I would say the best thing he has done so far, in return for a fantastic deal on Russian energy supply, is keep the British from entering the Black Sea. BJ is especially obsessed with WWIII and he can easily start it in there. While Erdogan’s role in destroying Syria is unforgivable and inhumane, he might be the person keeping WWIII from igniting. Here is another strange twist. John Bolton and his likes are working to regime change Turkey. Reality is stranger than fiction.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/twilight-of-turkish-democracy
AQ must give Dumbo bush medal named after laden. Before him aq,was a fringe group with 400 members with limited autonomy within Afghanistan and now they rules over spaces all over the world🤣🤣🤣🤣
same sh*t different day