Turkey, ISIS, Kurds and Syria

[TheHoodedClaw]

 

[Sifta]

martial law - a coup seems likely

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

martial law - a coup seems likely

Yeah was thinking that. The likes of this from the air force (assuming it's from tonight and from Ankara, of course)



seems more "show of strength" than "terror alert"

 

[Sifta]

Prescient:

Ziad Fadel says:
July 14th, 2016 at 10:37 AM [Level 10 - Cesar]
Their leadership has fallen apart and they don't even have the fig leaf of a Caliph anymore. I am confirming the Caliph's death. Ziad


http://syrianperspective.com/2016/0...udi-arabia-on-the-verge-of-collapse-yawn.html

 

[Geri]

Social media networks shut down

 

[LDC]

To be taken with a healthy pinch of salt, but...



E2A: FARC now claiming it's a fake story.

 

[LDC]

Huge car bomb (and confused reports of possibly other explosions) yesterday in Qamishlo in Rojava, claimed by daesh.

Reports of 50+ deaths and 100+ injured. Plenty of news online, can't be bothered finding the best one.

 

[gawkrodger]

Brit volunteer with the YPG killed

British man killed fighting Isis in Syria

 

[teqniq]

 

[teqniq]

Turkey expects Syrian Kurdish forces to withdraw after Manbij operation: minister | Reuters

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
Referring to numerous injustices that the Kurds have endured in their history, the video mentions the 16th century founder of the Shiite Safavid Dynasty, Shah Ismail, and modern-day revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's killing of Sunni Kurds. Interestingly, the reference to those alleged atrocities against the Kurds is supported with horrifying images of dead children that appear to be actually from Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988. Curiously, however, the video leaves out any mention of the Halabja massacre itself, in which an estimated 5,000 Kurdish civilians were killed by the Iraqi dictator who was of Sunni Arab origin.

The video is released at a time of major territorial losses for IS in both Iraq and Syria. Kurdish forces have been instrumental in both countries in turning the tide against the extremist group.

“IS has been contained by Kurdish military and security forces and hasn't been able to make any breakthrough in the front lines for months,” Mariwan Naqshbandi, a senior official at the Iraqi Kurdistan's Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs, told Al-Monitor. “But they still have some Kurds who sympathize with them and so — through such propaganda — they are addressing this type of people.”

Naqshbandi estimated that more than 500 Iraqi Kurds have joined IS over the past couple of years. Media reports also indicate that many Kurds from the impoverished Kurdish region of Turkey might have entered IS ranks. However, no figures are available on Syrian and Iranian Kurds within the jihadi organization.

...

Of course the Iranians were allied with the Kurdish PUK at Halabja just one of Saddam's many chemical atrocities in the Iran-Iraq war. Halabja after the massacre received a lot of attention from GCC NGOs and as a result became something of a centre of Kurdish Salafism. I've seen various estimates but Kurds are over represented in IS, the KRG was claiming 600-700 fighters had emigrated to the Caliphate from its small population.

There's quite a lot of hostility to the PKK among conservative Kurds for various reasons. The PKK's resumption of its long war with the Turkish state hurt it's support running high after Kobani. Folk were far keener on them when Apo was trying to make peace, the war in the SE is simply disruptive and often regarded as futile. A lot of Kurds in Turkey went back to voting for the ruling AKP in the last election. There are significant Salafist Kurdish groups sometimes given backing by the Deep State. The PKK's Lefty politics are an affront to Salafists, even more alien than Iranian Khomeinism in some ways. In Turkey I've heard this even divides Kurdish families.

IS here are trying to convert those rifts into support.

 

[teqniq]

Asayish crack down on political opponents in Al-Hasakah after protests

 

[butchersapron]

Asayish crack down on political opponents in Al-Hasakah after protests

Story has it slightly wrong - the protests were against a previous round of arrests of leaders of rival Kurdish parties in Rojava starting on saturday last, so this is a second round of arrests.

edit: it does touch on that at the end actually.

 

[teqniq]

It's being reported on Twitter that there's a major battle going on between Kurdish forces and the regime including airstrikes. Things have been deteriorating on this front over the last couple of weeks but this looks to be a serious escalation

 

[butchersapron]

That would be a first, but i can't see this being the hoped for YPG attack on the regime. Neither side wants that. There's been on-off clashes in Hasakah since the regime effectively gifted it to the YPG, between the supposedly civil security force the Asayish (in reality under YPG control) and the pro-regime NDF (horrible iran funded, ran and armed sectarian militias on the whole) over various points of local honour/dispute. Never an airstrike though. If that happened and is from the regime rather than the russians then the latter will probably not be very happy given they're trying right now to politically capture the PYD/YPG.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War On The Rocks TURKEY AND THE PKK AFTER THE FAILED COUP

...
In the midst of all this, the country’s war with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) remains as deadly as ever. The Turkish army has dramatically reduced its operations, but the PKK has continued to strike at the same pace as before. If the weeks since the coup attempt give us any indication, it appears that the coup attempt may change the military balance in this conflict but it will not cause either side to rethink its basic strategy. This, in turn, carries a risk of escalation that would immensely complicate Washington’s long-term fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
...

Tricky, with the Syrian end of the PKK increasingly dominant in its command and the SDF seemingly headed to Afrin via al Bab rather than Raqqa. Syria is a strategic disaster for Turkey. It's not just us using the PKK as an anti-IS force but that having been well Ahead of Ankara in demanding Assad leave we seem to have lost enthusiasm for the revolt that they have come to see as a moral imperative. Them backing the Salafist alliance Jaish al Fateh taking Idlib caused the Russian entry into theatre bringing Turkey's traditional enemy to its borders.

Not the moment the Turks wanted to lose the part of the army fighting the PKK but that's exactly the part of the officer corps that staged the coup. In part it seems because they blamed the AKP for trying to cut a peace deal with the PKK while the latter seem to have been stockpiling munitions and gaining new tactical skills in Syria.

The Turks have now lost more security people since last June fighting the PKK in Turkey than the British army did in both 21st century wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, over 600. If you were to believe the PKK agitprop ten times more. It's hardly surprising Ankara worries more about the PKK and despite domestic attacks sees IS as an irritation.

Another aspect is we have Russia pivoting to the ME as the US tries to pivot out of there to Asia. An understandably unhappy Turkey becomes a more important part of NATO's containment of Russia. If you base threat calculus on capability compared to the ICBM equipped Russians IS is really pretty trivial.

 

[teqniq]

Syrian Kurds blame regime attacks on Iran and Turkey - ARA News

 

[teqniq]

Why the Syrians are bombing Kurds in Hasaka?, Newshour - BBC World Service

 

[inva]

Why the Syrians are bombing Kurds in Hasaka?, Newshour - BBC World Service

'The Syrians'
not listened, but what an awful headline.

 

[butchersapron]

Not having a go but this development should really be in the Syrian thread - though there are suggestions this is down to a new pro-assad turkish-russian agreement.

 

[teqniq]

Not having a go but this development should really be in the Syrian thread - though there are suggestions this is down to a new pro-assad turkish-russian agreement.

Fair point I was undecided about this but will post it there too - it's all gotten more than complicated really.

 

[butchersapron]

Ta.

 

[Pickman's model]

On War On The Rocks TURKEY AND THE PKK AFTER THE FAILED COUP
Tricky, with the Syrian end of the PKK increasingly dominant in its command and the SDF seemingly headed to Afrin via al Bab rather than Raqqa. Syria is a strategic disaster for Turkey. It's not just us using the PKK as an anti-IS force but that having been well Ahead of Ankara in demanding Assad leave we seem to have lost enthusiasm for the revolt that they have come to see as a moral imperative. Them backing the Salafist alliance Jaish al Fateh taking Idlib caused the Russian entry into theatre bringing Turkey's traditional enemy to its borders.

Not the moment the Turks wanted to lose the part of the army fighting the PKK but that's exactly the part of the officer corps that staged the coup. In part it seems because they blamed the AKP for trying to cut a peace deal with the PKK while the latter seem to have been stockpiling munitions and gaining new tactical skills in Syria.

The Turks have now lost more security people since last June fighting the PKK in Turkey than the British army did in both 21st century wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, over 600. If you were to believe the PKK agitprop ten times more. It's hardly surprising Ankara worries more about the PKK and despite domestic attacks sees IS as an irritation.

Another aspect is we have Russia pivoting to the ME as the US tries to pivot out of there to Asia. An understandably unhappy Turkey becomes a more important part of NATO's containment of Russia. If you base threat calculus on capability compared to the ICBM equipped Russians IS is really pretty trivial.

What's 454 + 179 if not over 600?

 

[butchersapron]

Fair point I was undecided about this but will post it there too - it's all gotten more than complicated really.

Overlapping.

 

[teqniq]

Overlapping.

From all I seen today a rough translation of this

Turkey will take a more active role in addressing the conflict in Syria in the next six months to prevent the war-torn country being divided along ethnic lines, the prime minister, Binali Yildirim, has said....

could be

"We have common cause with Assad and Iran over the Kurds so we are going to seize the opportunity thwart their ambitions decisively."

Also the Americans appear to have moved their special forces/advisors out of the Hasaka area, which whilst it may prudent from the American's perspective, from the Kurdish side it's being seen as a failure to offer support and could I suppose be a prelude for hanging them out to dry

 

[CrabbedOne]

I think the Russians and Turks just deconflicted over Syria, they are still fundamentally at odds. The Russians were clearly trying to keep their options open with the PKK. As in Soviet times the Russians seem to have very little influence over the Assad clan. It's the Iranians that have their old ally's ear. The Turks regard the PKK as a regime asset. I've read the Iranians and Turks seem to be having a meeting of minds at least on the PKK's Western Kurdistan project. That may be leading to the end of the regime-PKK hudna.

 

[miss direct]

Second wedding bombing in a week. At least 30 dead in last nights bomb in Gaziantep.

 

[teqniq]

ISIL suspects incriminated in the murder of 12 Germany nationals walk free from Turkey court (with images, tweets) · abdbozkurt

 

[CrabbedOne]

In Al Monitor Ankara hardening anti-PKK strategy

...
The military strategy in the rural areas will no longer be based on static, permanent outposts, but will employ mobile offensive units. Ankara relies heavily on advanced military technology of target acquisition and precise hits. The latest publicized hits were the killing of five PKK militants at Cukurca and later four others at Hakkari by Turkish-made TB2 Bayraktar drones.

High command has adapted the technology-intensive concept of “search-find-destroy” through a special forces/drones/F-16 triad. Officials are determined to pursue this concept with uninterrupted tempo in all weather conditions.

An important element of technology-intensive military offensive in rural terrain is to provide close air support. Ankara is confident that the T129 ATAK assault helicopters, the 14th of which was delivered last week, will make a significant difference in taking on the PKK on rural terrain.

Another feature of the combat in rural terrain is the government-sponsored village guards, made up of pro-government, armed Kurds who know the terrain well. With a recently issued decree under the state of emergency, the village guards — now about 90,000 strong — will be deployed not only in their home provinces but all over the southeast.

Urban terrain security will be based on police and gendarmerie special operations teams. Ankara, aware that the destruction inflicted in towns by military forces had tarnished Turkey's international reputation, now wants to handle security in towns by putting up permanent outposts in critical entry-exit points and by increasing the number of police and gendarmerie special operation teams. New Minister of Interior Suleyman Soylu said 10,000 new people will be recruited and given crash courses in police special operations.

With another state of emergency decree, new police personnel can be recruited solely by oral interviews instead of going through the cumbersome central public service examination process. This means those with basic qualifications will be recruited to serve in police special operation teams after a simple interview and seven months of condensed training. Many young people see this as the simplest and quickest shortcut to acquire civil servant status.

Ankara plans to install in cities a “neighborhood guard” system, similar to village guards, by arming pro-state Kurdish youth in neighborhoods of critical towns. But armed strife has already begun between neighborhood guards and PKK urban militants. One such neighborhood guard was recently executed in Mardin. He was one of 624 neighborhood guards hired by the state.

The intention is to mobilize the security forces both in urban and rural terrains to exert round-the-clock pressure on the PKK and immobilize it.

...

Ankara has been trying to stamp out the PKK for decades. The TSK had a pretty free hand back in the day. I doubt they'll succeed this time round either. It's a futile conflict for both sides.

 

[gawkrodger]

from the Indy today

The British volunteers prepared to die fighting Isis in Syria