On August 9th 2015 (9/8/15) Turkey ordered the Al Qaeda affiliated Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition to cede the town of Marea to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The JAF followed Turkey's instructions and ISIL duly took control of Marea on August 27th (27/8/15).
Turkey's intention was that ISIL occupying a town just 20km (12 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey would provide a pre-text for a Turkish invasion of Syria to remove the 'ISIL threat.'
The true objective of the invasion though was to re-establish ISIL's supply lines through Turkey and eliminate the Kurdish dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) that had cut those supply lines by establishing a vast buffer-zone between Turkey and ISIL's de facto capital in Raqqa.
The date for this Turkish invasion was set for December 16th 2015 (16/12/15). However the diplomatic backlash against a smaller scale Turkish invasion of northern Iraq on December 4th (4/12/15) led to it being cancelled.
Being prevented from invading Syria in support of ISIL Turkey instead declared war on it's own Kurdish population. This seems to be a clear example of Turkey following ISIL's advice to its supporters that if they are unable to travel to Syria or Iraq to fight for ISIL they should carry out attacks at home in support of ISIL.
Since December 15th (15/12/15) most of Turkey's aggression has been focused on the Sur district of the city of Diyarbakir in southern Turkey around 65km (40 miles) north of the border with Syria.
Here Turkish combat troops have surrounded the city sealing it off while pounding it with tank and artillery fire along with air-strikes. When I first saw the footage coming out of Diyarbakir I assumed it had been shot in Syria.
So far Turkey claims that it has killed 578 people in this operation all of whom Turkey accuses of being members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). However Turkey has a decades long reputation for simply murdering Kurdish civilians and then planting weapons on the bodies to claim they are members of the PKK who were killed in combat.
A particularly controversial example of this occurred in 1993 when Turkey accused the PKK of setting fire to a home in the village of Mus - around 150km (90 miles) north-east of Diyarbakir - killing a family of 10 including 7 children aged between 3 and 13.
In late 2014 even a Turkish Court was forced to admit that the Ogut case as it's sometimes known was not the work of the PKK but the Turkish military who murdered the family as punishment for the death of a Turkish officer hours earlier.
What we do know is that since the start of the Diyarbakir operation less then four weeks ago Turkey has murdered at least 130 Kurdish civilians.
With it being made clear to Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he will not be getting permission to formally invade Syria he has simply changed tactic of Marea. Rather than using conventional Turkish forces to invade Syria Erdogan is now attempting to use what are termed Syrian Turkmen forces to complete the task.
The Syrian Turkmen forces are essentially an unconventional branch of the Turkish military recruited and trained in Turkey. For example Alparslan Celik who acted as the Syrian Turkmen's spokesman following the Turkish downing of a Russia Su-24 over Syria on November 24th (24/11/15) is the son of a former Mayor of the Turkish city of Gaziantep.
On Saturday (9/1/16) Turkish forces opened fire on ten villages around Marea in support of advance by Turkmen forces. This included the use of heavy, blind weapons such as artillery and tank fire which is know to place civilians at great risk. To its eternal discredit this operation was supported by Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the US led coalition.
The loss of Marea will of course have little impact on ISIL because supplies and fighters will continue to cross in and out of Turkey through Turkmen controlled territory. Turkey is being quite open about the fact that the ultimate objective of the operation is not to defeat ISIL but to attack the QSD controlled buffer-zone that sits beyond Marea to the east of the Euphrates River.
The two main Turkmen groups used in Saturday's operation were the Levant Front/Jabhat al-Sham and the Levant Legion/Faylaq al-Sham. This highlights I find the western media's refusal to refer to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as an act of support for the group.
The reference to the "Levant" is key to ISIL nihilist and sectarian ideology. By attempting to cover it up by referring to them as "Islamic State" or "ISIS" the media are preventing their audience - this includes politicans and decision makers - realising that groups like the Levant Legion and the Levant Front have exactly the same ideology as ISIL.
Turkey's original order to cede Marea to ISIL was issued through the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar al-Sham) section of the JAF coalition.
If protests were to spring up against Turkey's brutal behaviour in Diyarbakir and it's support for ISIL they are most likely to start in Germany.
Due to Turkey's appalling record on human rights and its brutal suppression of political dissent that goes back more then 40 years Germany automatically grants political asylum or refugee status to people from Turkey - particularly Kurds. As a result Germany has an extremely large ethnically Turkish/Kurdish population. The World Cup winning Arsenal mid-fielder Mesut Ozil is probably the most famous example of this. Even if he does look a bit like a frog.
Germany of course is already in the midst of widespread protest against Chancellor/Head of State Angela Merkel's refugee policy in the wake of the New Year's Eve (NYE) sex attacks in Cologne and elsewhere. It is of course this refugee policy that led to the European Union (EU) to giving Turkey USD3bn and visa-free travel as reward for flooding Europe with refugees and terrorists.
It is also Merkel's refugee policy that has forced Germany to base it's
anti-ISIL aircraft at USAF base Incirlik in Turkey. This obviously makes
it much more difficult for Germany - and indeed CJTFOIR - to put pressure
on Turkey to drop its support for ISIL.
Yesterday (12/1/16) we were given yet another example of the dangers of the EU's policy towards Turkey when France experienced it's third terror attack of 2016. Here a 15 year old boy attacked a Rabbi outside a Synagogue in the southern city of Marseilles with a machete in the name of ISIL. Fortunately the 35 year old was only slightly injured after smashing his attacker over the head with a copy of the Torah.
Apparently the attacker is registered as a Kurdish refugee from Turkey. However it is a common practice for Turks to lie about being Kurdish in order to claim asylum in the EU.
Amid growing, EU-wide pressure it appears that Merkel is now on the brink of reversing her disastrous policy of engagement with Turkey over refugees.
It should come as no surprise then that today Turkey has suffered another 'terrorist attack.'
On this occasion a female suicide bomber blew herself up amid a crowd of tourists close to the Blue Mosque in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul. Although details are still emerging it appears that 10 tourists - including 9 Germans - were killed on what seems to be a targeted attack on German citizens.
This was done in an effort to convince the world that Turkey is an ally in the fight against ISIL when in reality Turkey's ruling Justice & Development Party (AKP) and ISIL are at this point essentially the same organisation. No doubt Turkey will be making much about how it is being forced to suffer because German aircraft are stationed at Incirlik and demanding more money from the EU in compensation.
The fact that German citizens were targeted of course forces Germany into a diplomatic dialogue to facilitate the return of the dead and wounded to Germany. Turkey obviously intends to exploit this to assess Merkel's position post-Cologne.
Elsewhere in the conflict following being granted entry to the much talked about town of Madaya yesterday the United Nations (UN) have identified 400 civilians who need to be immediately evacuated for medical treatment. We are waiting to see if the JAF who control the town will give permission for those evacuations to take place or whether they'll cling on in the hope the footage of their hostages slowly dying can be blamed on the Syrian government.
I would now like to move on to cover the liberation of Ramadi and the wave of terror attacks it has triggered in Iraq. However because the Erdogan situation has still not been properly squared away I don't have time for what will be a long post because once again I'm being dragged into dealing with yet another Turkish crisis in northern Syria.
I can't even say I'll make time to get on with it tomorrow. After all that's what I said last night.
17:35 on 12/1/16 (UK date).
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