According to the BBC, Erdogan has just announced that his troops have begun a new military offensive in Northern Syria:
Turkish troops have begun an offensive in north-eastern Syria, which could lead to direct conflict with Kurdish-led forces allied to the United States.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation was to create a “safe zone” cleared of Kurdish militias which will also house Syrian refugees.
According to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), civilian areas were attacked by Turkish warplanes.
Announcing the offensive on Twitter, Mr Erdogan said the “mission was to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area”.
The operation, he added, would “preserve Syria’s territorial integrity and liberate local communities from terrorists.”
Those terrorists that Erdogan refers to are the Kurds: the PKK and the YPG. They began terrorist attacks on Turkish soil after Erdogan began attacking them in the summer of 2015, when he needed to rally the country behind the AKP which had just lost its super majority in an election that left a hung parliament. The PKK/YPG would focus their attacks on Turkish military, whereas ISIS would attack civilians.
It continues…
The Turkish government wants to create a “safe zone” cleared of Kurdish militias which will also house some of Turkey’s 3.6 million Syrian refugees.
Several large explosions were reported in the border town of Ras al-Ain.
Well that didn’t take long.
Just to re-emphasize what was also in the article…
Syrian Kurds under bombardment from Turkish jets urgently request air support from U.S. and “No fly zone” to protect civilians: SDF statement
— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) October 9, 2019
And Jennifer Griffin gives the bad news…
The US military has been ordered by President Trump not to help. https://t.co/Fm0J7H9BBJ
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) October 9, 2019
Here’s an image provided by the BBC of where the Turkish offensive is headed:
Notice where the Turkish offensives will begin: the city of Manbij. That was once the “headquarters” of the alliance between the US and Kurds as they fought ISIS together. No more.
Fox News reported yesterday that the Kurds are turning to Assad for help, offering him ares of Kurdish control in exchange for his protection.