Operation Featherweight: Month 43, Week 2, Day 5.

This should be read as a continuation of Wednesday's post; https://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/operation-featherweight-month-43-week-2.html

If the southern Astana Zone along the Golan Heights was the easiest for the Astana Parties to agree upon then the northern zone centred around Idlib Province and designated; "The Sudetenland" has been the most controversial.

This is the zone that Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been desperate to invade and annex as part of his new Ottoman Empire. That alone is a grotesque violation of international law of a scale not seen since, well, Adolf Hitler invaded and annexed Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in 1938.

It is also the heartland and main base of operations for Al Qaeda in Syria.

Erdogan would very much like to send the Turkish military to protect and assist Al Qaeda within the Sudetenland. However that is not something that the other Astana Parties can agree to.

You would hope it is something that the NATO nations lead by the US would also strongly oppose.

As a result through the negotiation Erdogan has repeatedly been forced to review and scale back his plans.

Erdogan initially wanted to invade the Sudetenland immediately following the liberation of Aleppo City for the Army of Conquest in December 2016. However the formation of the Astana Process forced him to put his plans on hold.

The Astana Zones plan was agreed in theory at the fifth round of meetings in the Astana Process held in May 2017. However it wasn't until the sixth round of meetings in the Astana Process held in September 2017 (14/9/17) Erdogan received theoretical permission to send regular Turkish troops to the Sudetenland.

Despite that theoretical permission in mid-September 2017 it took until October 6th 2017 (6/10/17) for Erdogan to actually send in troops. By that time the nature of their mission had become seriously reduced.

Rather then sending troops into all of Idlib Province Erdogan's invasion force was limited to a small area that that has become known as the; "Atmeh-Salwa Access Area."

Approximately 400kmsq (240milesq) in area this stretches from the Turkey/Syria border in the west to roughly the town of Anadan in the east and from the Simeon Highlands in the north to the Al Kafr Mountain in the south.

Within this area regular Turkish forces have established 10 control points or small bases. Crucially these Turkish control points are at the very north of Idlib Province. They sit far closer to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) controlled Afrin Canton directly to the north then they do to any areas under control of ISIL, Al Qaeda or even the Syrians themselves.

At the second round of meetings in the Astana Process held in July 2017 - prior to the Astana Zones Agreement - attempts were made to have the Army of Conquest included in the Astana Ceasefire.

This involved Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate The Support Front/Jabhat al-Nusra (ANF) rebrand themselves as; The Organisation for the Liberation of the Levant/Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The intention being to disguise the fact that they are part of Al Qaeda.

With no-one believing this name change it actually served to have the opposite effect.

Within the Army of Conquest all members of the coalition including various fragments of the long defunct Free Syrian Army (FSA) retained their own identity only agreeing to co-operate with each other. The formation of Tahrir al-Sham required all groups to formally pledge allegiance to Al Qaeda and take orders from the group.

Many of the extreme Islamist fragments of the FSA were only too happy to do this.

Probably the most high profile of these grouplets is the Movement of Nour al-Din al-Zenki/Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki. Under former US President Barack Obama they were trained and armed by the US and fled en mass to the Sudetenland following the liberation of Aleppo City.

Probably the most high profile members of Nour al-Zinki are Ghassan al-Abed and Fatemah al-Abed. They are the parents of Bana al-Abed - the 7 year old girl who supposedly live Tweeted the horrors of the siege of Aleppo City. Having signed a book deal the al-Abeds are now living in Turkey under Erdogan's protection.

Nour al-Zinki were also responsible for the photographs of  Omar Daqneesh which were widely circulated in particularly the western media in August 2016. What has been less well publicised is the video in which al-Zinki member Mahmoud Raslan - who took the Omar Daqneesh  photograph - beheading a 13 year old Shia Muslim child as an infidel.

As part of the negotiation between the Astana Zones Agreement in May 2017 and Turkish troops invading the Sudetenland in October 2017 Erdogan has been trying to separate these FSA fragments from Tahrir al-Sham by bringing them under the control of the United Turkmen Army (UTA).

Sometimes known as the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) the UTA are the paramilitary wing of the fascist Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) known as the Grey Wolves. Within Syria they function as an irregular and therefore illegal branch of the Turkish military.

Nour al-Zinki led what Erdogan hoped would become a wave of defections when it publicly broke ties with Tahrir al-Sham in June 2017.

In July 2017 Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) followed suit by publicly breaking off ties with Tahrir al-Sham. Ahrar al-Sham are closely linked to Erdogan in Turkey, Qatar and ISIL through the Muslim Brotherhood.

After defecting from Tahrir al-Sham Ahrar al-Sham then announced their intention to fighting the group. Ahrar al-Sham were quickly defeated by Tahrir al-Sham.

This type of shoving match between the two Sham groups is something we've become very familiar with. Particularly within the Garvaghy Road area.

To the north of the Sudetenland you have the SDF controlled Afrin Canton. Directly to the east of Afrin Canton you have Garvaghy Road.

Stretching or roughly 100km (60 miles) from Azaz/Kilis in the west and the Euphrates River in the east Garvaghy Road was invaded and annexed by regular Turkish forces in August 2016. Specifically to prevent the SDF cutting ISIL and Al Qaeda's supply lines with Turkey by linking Afrin Canton with the Shangri-La area under the SDF's control to the north-east of the Euphrates.

In the year prior to the formal Turkish invasion it was extremely common for the Army of Conquest and ISIL to swap control of towns in Garvaghy Road such as Azaz, Marea and Cobanbey. Thinking it would give Erdogan pretence to invade Al Qaeda would seize control of a town. When Erdogan realised it wouldn't Al Qaeda would simply return control of the town of ISIL and vice versa.

Over the course of several months the UTA established numerous new FSA grouplets to encourage defections from Tahrir al-Sham. The most notable of these being the Battalion of God/Faylaq al-Majid who emerged in September 2017.

On October 25th 2017 (25/10/17) Erdogan organised these Islamist defectors into the so-called; "Syrian National Army" which is supposedly the military wing of the; "Syrian Interim Government. With Syria already having a national army and a national government those names are only likely to spread confusion.

Tellingly the lead battalion in this so-called Syrian National Army is the Sultan Murad Battalion. Named after the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV they are one of the main divisions of the UTA or Turkish Grey Wolves.

However on November 17th 2017 (17/11/17) Nour al-Zinki forgot that they were supposedly no longer linked to Al Qaeda. They announced a joint offensive against the Syrians with Tahrir al-Sham.

At the same time as attempting to separate Islamist FSA fragments from Tahrir al-Sham Erdogan, Al Qaeda and Tahrir al-Sham themselves have been working hard to distance Tahrir al-Sham from Al Qaeda.

In mid-September 2017 Hamza bin Laden - son of Osama bin Laden, you may have heard of him - claimed to be in Syria's Sudetenland.

On behalf of Al Qaeda he condemned Tahrir al-Sham as traitors to Al Qaeda and called on Al Qaeda supporters to desert to Tahrir al-Sham to join a new true Al Qaeda group in Syria. Although much talked about and rumoured to have the name; Supporters of the Levant Group/Ansar Al-Furqan Fi Bilad al-Sham has yet to materialise.

On November 27th 2017 (27/11/17) Tahrir al-Sham arrested a number of senior figures in the group with very close links to Al Qaeda.

This prompted Al Qaeda's worldwide leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to release an audio message giving a stinging rebuke of Tahrir al-Sham's actions. The only problem was that it was recorded in late-September/early-October long before Tahrir al-Sham had made the arrests.

On December 1st 2017 (1/12/17) Al Qaeda used the messaging app Telegram to compare Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Then went on to call for Al Qaeda supporters to desert Tahrir al-Sham to join this new true Al Qaeda group in Syria. This Ansar al-Furqan group has still yet to materialise.

The fact I able to tell you what is being said in Al Qaeda message groups on Telegram should tell you all you need to know about how secure this Russian owned messaging app really is. It is a long established fact within intelligence circles that people are more inclined to believe information if they think they've been clever in stealing it.

These supposed splits between the UTA, Tahrir al-Sham have been accompanied by a large number of tit-for-tat bombings and assassinations. 

Assassinations supposedly carried out by Tahrir al-Sham but most likely really carried out by Turkish intelligence have particularly targeted the White Helmets group. This is a clear and deliberate effort to try and convince people that the White Helmets aren't part of Al Qaeda and their extremely untrustworthy claims can be trusted.

On December 18th 2017 (18/12/17) Al Qaeda, Tahrir al-Sham, the UTA, Ahrar al-Sham etc all forgot they're trying to convince us they're separate from each other. They announced a joint offensive to fight the Syrians.

In short they confirmed that the Army of Conquest never went away. It just tried to change its name a few times.

Directly to the south of the Sudetenland you have the Hama Astana Zone. Due to the way that Syria's provinces are arranged this not only includes all of Hama Province but also large parts of Homs and Aleppo Provinces.

The plan is that I will provide a more detailed update on recent developments in that zone possibly on Monday (22/1/18). However the abridged version is that it came into force on August 3rd 2017 (3/8/17).

It then ceased to exist on August 29th 2017 (29/8/17) when Army of Conquest forces based in the Sudetenland launched an offensive against Syrian forces. This prompted several months of offensives and counter-offensives between the Syrians and the Army of Conquest.

On October 25th 2017 (25/10/17) the Syrians launched a big offensive of their own with the ultimate objective of liberating the Abu al-Duhur Airbase. This sits deep inside Idlib Province around 45km (25 miles) south-west of Idlib City.

On December 20th (20/12/17) the Syrian Tiger Forces joined the offensive fresh from their victory against ISIL in the Euphrates River Basin. 

Since around January 4th (4/1/17) the Army of Conquest have been in full retreat arming local civilians and prisoners in an effort to hold off the Syrian advance. Today (20/1/17) the Syrians arrived at the airbase.

With Army of Conquest defences collapsing across Hama and the Sudetenland Erdogan has been threatening to send regular Turkish forces to attack the SDF within Afrin Canton.

In part this is to put pressure on Russia to put pressure on the Syrians to halt the Abu al-Duhur Airbase offence. Also if that doesn't work and it appears not to short of running home to daddy in Turkey the Army of Conquest are fast running out of places to retreat too.

The SDF are of course backed by the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR). Not only with airpower but also American ground forces including Special Operations Forces (SOF's) and conventional forces.

As such a Turkish attack on the SDF in Afrin Canton can only be viewed as an attack on CJTFOIR and against the US' interests in Syria.

Unfortunately the US' response to Erdogan's aggression has been rather hampered.

Yesterday (19/1/18) the Democrat Party shutdown the US government including military funding. 

Today (20/1/18) the Democrat Party are staging anti-Trump "(Muslim) Sister Marches" in several US cities.

18:30 on 20/1/18 (UK date).