Tag: Kurds

Posted on

TERROR IN ISTANBUL: Is Turkey Safe Anymore?

Last night’s terror attack at an Istanbul night club is only the latest terror attack against Turkey. With 35 dead from the attack on New Years eve, the 45 killed in Ataturk airport last month, and a failed coup, it has become apparent that Turkey is increasingly growing unstable. Erdogan would like us to believe he has everything under control, but the pressures growing against his rule from within as well as pressures pushing against him from Russia and infuriated NATO members, his rule is growing far more unstable than previously believed.

In the Istanbul attack, CNN Turk reported the two attackers were dressed in Santa costumes. Some witnesses claimed they were speaking Arabic (not Turkish).

“Unfortunately, at least 35 of our citizens lost their lives. One was a police officer. Forty people are receiving treatment in hospitals,” Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin told reporters, according to the AFP news agency. “What happened today is a terror attack.”

Playing with ISIS is Like Playing with Fire

With Turkey working with Russia to shut down the Syrian war, ISIS (its once loyal proxy) is now turning on Erdogan and his government.  When Erdogan opened the flood gates into northern Syria for ISIS to cross in order to destabilize the country, he never imagined Russia coming into the war.  The plan was always for Erdogan to insert Turkey into Syria and Iraq as the great stabilizer.  He won this role from Obama and NATO.

The Russian intervention has caused Turkey to pull back its support of ISIS and other Jihadist groups and make peace with Putin.  This of course makes Erdogan into an apostate as far as ISIS is concerned and makes anything in Turkey a target for Jihadists.

Kurdish Rebellion in the Works

Russia has a very real interest in making sure Erdogan stays on the defensive.  One gives time for Syria to finish reasserting its sovereignty throughout its country and second Turkey has less reason to interfere with Russian aspirations in the region, including northern Iraq and the eastern Mediterranean.  Putin always works in two spheres of influence.  One is overt, like we saw in Crimea and Syria.  The other is a page ripped from the KGB cold War playbook and that is covertly funding and inspiring revolution.  This we see in the Donbass region of the Ukraine.  We are about to see it in southern Turkey, which has a solid Kurdish population itching for freedom.

Russia’s interests in the region intersect with Kurdish aspirations.  It’s only a matter of time until Turkey feels these aspirations in a far more serious way.

Whether its ISIS, Russia, or Kurdish Independence, Erdogan’s Turkey is a country which is no longer safe or secure.

Posted on

“We Are Coming Nineveh” Obama Must Win in Mosul or Donald Trump Will Do it For Him

Legacies are bitter weapons that plague outgoing presidents time and time again.  Barack Obama thought he had his legacy wrapped up, but then came the blue color workers and placed Donald Trump into office. With one election Obama’s legacy is in tatters and he knows it.  Despite all of that, there is one last battle Obama needs and wants to win to stave off a complete rejection of his so far disastrous foreign policy. This battle is the battle of Mosul, where ISIS is making there last stand as far as nation building is going.

Despite a bitter beginning of infighting between Shiite militias, Turkish troops, Kurdish Peshmerga, and Iraqi National forces, the operation according the Iraqi officials is beginning to move along. “We Are Coming Nineveh”  has a time limit though and that is Jan. 20th.  Right now Obama has kept the Russians out of the bombing campaign and wants to prove he doesn’t need them to finish the job.  If Mosul is not taken by inauguration day, Trump will surely bring the Russians in to crush ISIS once and for all.

Why does this matter?

Obama has staked his foreign policy at least in the waning years of his Presidency on holding off Russian expansion.  Of course Putin has bested him in Eastern Europe as well as Syria.  This means Obama must keep him out of Iraq or risk being seen as a total loser. With Mosul grinding on and 60 days until President-Elect Trump becomes President Trump, the odds are not great that the Iraqi forces will succeed.  Keep in mind ISIS could have been defeated a while ago, but each side fighting in Iraq has used the group as a pawn to offset what they see as a more mortal enemy.

This is why Trump’s approach is to ignore the game on the ground and get together with Putin and flatten ISIS and if need be others.

Jan. 20th is coming.  After that date Iraq and Operation “We Are Coming Nineveh”  are on the chopping block.

[huge_it_share]

Posted on

Turkish Tanks Roll into Al-Rai Expanding Operation Euphrates Shield

On Saturday more Turkish tanks crossed the Syrian border into the Syrian rebel-controlled town of al-Rai in order to support the new operation Euphrates Shield

Al-Rai is about 55 kilometers west of Jarablus, and part of a 90-kilometer strip near the Turkish border that Erdogan’s government says it is clearing of jihadis while making sure the YPG or Syrian Kurdish Army keeps away.

The Turkish backed rebels buoyed by the Turkish tanks spread out and then seized villages to the east and the south of al-Rai.

“They took several villages, about eight villages. At first they took two and withdrew from them, but then reinforcements came and there was an advance,” Zakaria Malahifji of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim group said.

While Ankara claims the The Turkish-backed operation’s goal is to put pressure on ISIS, most observers believe that Turkey’s real goal is to block the YPG from expanding and forming a formidable Kurdish state.

While Turkey views the Kurdish Army as a terrorist organization, NATO as a whole sees the group as the vanguard of their anti-ISIS strategy.  This conflict of interest has caused stress between NATO and Turkey.

At the G20 summit Erdogan  spelled out his view of the YPG to China’s CCTV:

“There is no good terrorist. All terrorists are bad. All organizations involved in terrorism are cursed. This is how we see things and how we put up our struggle.”

For Erdogan, the label of terrorist is a ruse to allow for a non-measured response to his Kurdish foes. Loosely applied, the Turkish military can be unleashed to finish them off.

Posted on

BREAKING NEWS: Turkey Driving Hard Against Kurds West of the Euphrates

If it is possible to believe Erdogan, his foray into Syria was for the purpose of driving ISIS from Jarablus, the only piece of land the Syrian Kurds did not control. Erdogan’s forces were of such mass that Turkey was accused of invading Syria.  ISIS quickly melted away and the Turkish military set its sights on the true “nemesis” to the Turkish homeland YPG or the Kurdish army in Syria.  

One thing has become clear.  Erdogan’s actions have put NATO in a very uncomfortable spot.  On one hand they have backed the Syrian Kurds as their vanguard attack force against ISIS and on the other they have the second largest NATO force in Turkey openly trying to wipe them out through a fake anti-ISIS operation.

Turkey has long maintained that a contiguous Kurdish state along its border running from the Mediterranean to Iran was an existential threat.  In pushing the Kurds back over the Euphrates they are risking the NATO coalition’s strategy against ISIS.  The Euphrates must be Washington’s red line.  If Turkey is allowed to press on, the Kurds will be forced to pivot elsewhere and not only NATO will lose a valuable indigenous ally, Israel will have squandered years of covert training and arms deals.

Posted on

GENOCIDE NOW: Turkey’s Real Target in Syria are the Kurds

Turkey’s invasion of Northern Syria is being billed as a full frontal attack on ISIS. Turkey has poured in ground troops, tanks, and harnessed NATO air cover to break the Kurdish control near their border.

True, there are pockets of ISIS near Jarablus the entry point for Turkish forces, but the Syrian Kurdish forces (YPG) have pretty much taken out the heaviest ISIS strongholds months ago.  Furthermore, we know the Russian military has pounded ISIS into the ground in various locations in Northern Syria.

2300syria-ISIS-7-27-15[1]

All of the above supports the assertion that Erdogan is far more concerned with the rise of an independent Kurdish State on its border than they are about Russian control over the Black Sea.  Not only are the Turks concerned with an independent Kurdistan, it can be assumed NATO is as well.

The Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq based out of Erbil has been a fantastic tool for Western technocrats wanting to display their credentials in the indigenous rights movement.  The KRG has pumped tons of oil into the global system and the Peshmerga has helped pushed back ISIS in many areas, but that is all the West is willing to concede.

The rise of Kurdistan from Iran to the Mediterranean is a danger to their post colonial rule, which saw the West hoist the Arabs up as the real indigenous rulers of the Middle East, while at the same time throwing at the most crumbs to the Kurds, Druze, Arameans, and Jews of the region.  The fact is the an independent Kurdistan blows out the Arab claim of indigenous rights. The Kurds along with the Druze, Arameans, and Jews are far more indigenous than the British created Arab states now in control of these areas. Kurdistan is a reminder of what once was well before Mohamed heard the voices that drove him and his followers to start the Jihad and eventually colonize the surrounding area.

With Turkey’s rapproachment with Russia now in full swing, Erdogan can finish off what the Turks started centuries ago when they came from the East and that is to wipe out the truly indigenous people of the region, first the Armenians and now the Kurds.