Turkey is poised for an imminent massive ground invasion of Northern Syria to quash Kurdish militia groups currently holding Afrin near the Turkish border. Multiple regional outlets have reported a build-up of forces that could constitute the largest external intervening force thus far in the entirety of the Syrian war. According to Middle East based…
The US may think a new strategy backing the Kurds in Syria with 30,000 border guards will settle old scores. In fact, it might push Turkey’s relations with Russia beyond breaking point. And who exactly are these ‘new recruits’? Hopes of real peace in Syria received a set back by the recent US backing of…
An unnamed senior Western official told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the plans are part of a new strategy for Syria currently being drafted by the Trump administration. Washington is planning ‘concrete steps’ toward providing a Syrian Democratic Forces-controlled area in northern Syria’s eastern Euphrates area three times the size of Lebanon with diplomatic recognition, a leading Arabic international…
This is a classic example of flip-flop policy. In November, the US promised Turkey to stop arming Kurdish militias in Syria after the Islamic State was routed. Brett McGurk, the US Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat Islamic State, explained that after the urban fighting in Raqqa was over “adjustments in the level of…
Two weeks ago I wondered if heightened Pentagon rhetoric about “unsafe Russian flying practices” in Syria was to prepare the media for a possible shoot down of a Russian plane by the US. Now the US has moved on to openly threatening to do so. Recall, on November 24th CNN ran an article whereby according…
Bashar al-Assad, when he arrived in Sochi on 20 November for a meeting with President V. Putin, was evidently premature in his declaration that ISIS had been completely defeated in Syria: in one day, on 27 November, ISIS carried out a counter-attack in the area between Abu Kamal and Mayadin. The Syrians suffered serious losses in their…
