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Russia and Brazil economies are in deep crisis.
No one beside Russia in BRICS gives a damn about Assad and his Alawistan.
Syrian Civil War (Graphic Photos/Vid Not Allowed)
- Thread starter Alienoz_TR
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No one beside Russia in BRICS gives a damn about Assad and his Alawistan.
mike2000 is back
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Seems the Kurds are the biggest winners in this war. Interesting, let's see how things will play out.
Lol the Syrian government will still target the if needed. They know they have Russia's backing vocals and Turkey won't care attack them.Turkey reportedly deployed two ‘Atılgan' medium-low altitude air defence systems near the Syrian border. They probably will be deployed near Al Bab to defend Turkish forces and their allies from further air attacks.
Tsilihin
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In this modern world, most peoples are born in loan and die in loan.
Loan is crucial for controlling and regulation in one society.
For that reason banks are deadly weapon.
You see one side of coins,other side is covered.
I don't believe in accidents,because many indications speak that everything is well planned.
we can talk and write about some happenings in near future and ....maybe we will hit the score
)
DayDreamerz
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Why are you calling it civil WAR not ready to announce IT syria is attacked by shias ,chews ,hindus or in fact what shall i call them was discovered in W W 2 ,, IN hitlers camps ,,, you made them in 80s how many times before in the history who knows other then APP loG ,, how else can you make a trainned tommando SPEAK ,,,, they just captured a chew in a church as a father ,,,, it is a result of NAZIISAM talks in USA ,, Hitler was right or wrong ,, THE INSIDE NEWS ,,,, japans earth quake reported yet or it is also hidden ?? the latest 1 ,, firstly it was a reactor ,, their ,, i cant remember the citys name exactly humashema i suppose ??? like these all NEWS ,,, i mean naziisam in usa jews are caught their dismentaling the history too DO NOT KNOW WHAT ELSE they are doing their ,,,, THEIR WILL BE SOME FACTORIES THEIR ,,making all these tappus (human covers ) etc etc etc possible for these shits ,,, race of coachroaches till donkeys ,,, if you want try you can not get the truth out ,,, is this a joke or true ,,, they use insects animals AND for their ss demands ,,, human voice they have some thing in throat ,,, this is eye witness so can not say this is not any thing seen a doctor sb of your taking it out with a hook of finger saying ohh buddies what operation is needed ,,, this is how the human voice comes out of what ever is in the tappu or ( human cover ) of shias open or hidden are ,,of hobbits ladies they will insist and so is guys if they still like to insist ,,, otherwise seen with eyes their teeth coming out to show after their was no teeth ,, in a second the real shit brain got me on machine ,,, saying oh were is her and his teeth ??? seen so many times 2-3 tappus at a time of same person WHAT ELSE CAN I CALL THEM ,, so witch one tappu or human cover as u STATED ON FB is zardari IN if you can TELL without making a CAMP (affraid you want call me their ) tu bhi to aaa jaa ,,,,
T-Rex
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Turkish Air Force kills 11 Daesh terrorists in Aleppo
Turkish Special Forces' soldier also martyred in northern Syria, military says
home > Turkey, todays headlines, middle east 29.11.2016
ANKARA
Turkish Air Force killed 11 terrorists in airstrikes carried out on four shelters used by Daesh in Syria’s western Aleppo city on Monday, the military announced on Tuesday.
The airstrikes targeted the Baratah, Dana and Zarzur regions as part of Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield that began in late August to clear Syria's northern border area of terrorists, it said in a statement.
Two Daesh vehicles were also targeted by armed drones in the region.
Separately, Turkish Special Forces' Sgt. 1st Class Halit Topuz, who was wounded during a clash in northern Syria later succumbed to his injures in Turkey's southeastern Gazitantep province Tuesday, the statement added.
Reporting by Sarp Ozer, Sinan Uslu;Writing by Didar Yusra Dilbura Oz
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/turkish-air-force-kills-11-daesh-terrorists-in-aleppo/695296
Turkish Special Forces' soldier also martyred in northern Syria, military says
home > Turkey, todays headlines, middle east 29.11.2016
ANKARA
Turkish Air Force killed 11 terrorists in airstrikes carried out on four shelters used by Daesh in Syria’s western Aleppo city on Monday, the military announced on Tuesday.
The airstrikes targeted the Baratah, Dana and Zarzur regions as part of Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield that began in late August to clear Syria's northern border area of terrorists, it said in a statement.
Two Daesh vehicles were also targeted by armed drones in the region.
Separately, Turkish Special Forces' Sgt. 1st Class Halit Topuz, who was wounded during a clash in northern Syria later succumbed to his injures in Turkey's southeastern Gazitantep province Tuesday, the statement added.
Reporting by Sarp Ozer, Sinan Uslu;Writing by Didar Yusra Dilbura Oz
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/turkish-air-force-kills-11-daesh-terrorists-in-aleppo/695296
ejaz007
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How much longer can east Aleppo hold out?
With hospitals destroyed, winter weather setting in and food running low, people in east Aleppo are running out of time.
Dylan Collins &
Hamza Abduljabbar's gnarled hands wipe the dust off the dashboard of his white Isuzu minibus.
Back hunched from decades sitting behind the wheel, Abduljabbar still wakes up each morning at 6am to check on his vehicle - the windows of which have long since been blown out by nearby air strikes - when his rounds of east Aleppo's Fardous neighbourhood would normally have begun.
"Everything is dusty these days. The bombing never stops," he says. "Anyway, there's no fuel, so the car just sits here." Five years of war and five months of siege have aged the 45-year-old father of three well beyond his years. He hasn't worked in months.
Government forces, backed by Russian air power and allied militias, began a new push last week to take control of the whole of Syria's second city, the latest offensive in the uprising-turned-war that has killed more than 400,000 people and forced nearly five million Syrians out of the country in search of safety.
The renewed bombing campaign has killed more than 400 civilians and allowed the government to take over the strategic Hanano housing district - which could effectively enable government troops to split the rebel-held east in two.
"The rebels have failed to break the siege and are losing territory, and the international community has failed to send in supplies or aid," said Abduljabbar. "My family and I are surviving day to day here under the barrel bombs and the planes. There’s nowhere else to go."
The situation in the besieged, rebel-held neighbourhoods of east Aleppo has "gone from terrible to terrifying to now barely survivable by human beings", UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien told the UN Security Council during his monthly briefing earlier this week.
Food rations pre-positioned in the city by the World Food Programme before UN access was cut off in July ran out on November 13, and aid workers have said that people in the city's east are "just days" away from starvation.
My family and I are surviving day to day here under the barrel bombs and the planes. There’s nowhere else to go.
Hamza Abduljabbar, east Aleppo resident
Food in local markets is scarce and prices have skyrocketed. Fuel and cooking gas are hard to come by in most areas. "There's no flour, no bread. Most of the bakeries have been destroyed and those that still stand are closed because there isn't any supplies," said Samah al-Ahmad.
The 32-year-old mother of four says that the only time she leaves her home in al-Ansari area is to scavenge for basics such as sugar and powdered milk.
Essentials such as salt, which three weeks ago cost 76 cents a kilo, now cost nearly $10 a kilo. The price of one kilo of sugar has jumped to well over $13. Baby formula, nearly impossible to find these days, is about $10 a package. Just three weeks ago the same package cost less than $2. One kilo of meat - a rare commodity - is upwards of $40.
All of the appliances in Samah's home have been piled into a corner. There hasn’t been any electricity for months and every household chore is done by hand. "The latest bombing has been particularly cruel," said Samah. "There is no safe place here any more."
Samah's husband, injured in an air strike last month, is bedridden. "I can't go to the hospital to get medicine because most have been destroyed … Those that still function lack some of the most basic medicines.”
There are no fully functioning hospitals in east Aleppo. The last operating medical facility was partially destroyed by an air strike on November 19, leaving up to 275,000 people without access to surgery or specialised care.
The 30 doctors who remain in the city operate in underground facilities and are running low on even the most basic of supplies - including antibiotics, IV fluids and blood bags.
"They are rationing basic supplies … If someone comes in for emergency care after a bombing and [the doctors] fear that more serious patients might soon be arriving, they might hold off on using anesthesia and save it for a patient who is in greater need,” says Elise Baker, a Syria researcher with Physicians for Human Rights.
'Everything is dusty these days. The bombing never stops,' Abduljabbar says [Reuters]
As supplies continue to dwindle, doctors have reportedly begun using half-doses of antibiotics in an effort to conserve what little resources they have left.
The government blockade on the city's rebel-controlled eastern neighbourhoods, in place since July, has forced doctors to "cut corners that just shouldn't be cut", says Baker, the effects of which could have lasting implications.
"We've heard anecdotally that people are developing resistance to antibiotics … using half-doses increases antibiotic resistance, which is a problem that will extend well beyond the end of the conflict."
As food and fuel quickly run out and winter weather sets in, Abduljabbar believes it's only a matter of time before Aleppo becomes Syria's next Daraya.
"There will be a solution in the regime’s favour and the city will be under the regime’s rule whether the rebels want it or not. But it won’t be easy," he says
READ MORE: I live in Aleppo, under siege
Government forces and members of Lebanon's Hezbollah armed group surrounded and blockaded Daraya, the rebel-held Damascus suburb, for four years until August when, due to increasing pressure on the ground - only one UN aid shipment had been let in since the beginning of the siege - rebel fighters agreed to give up their heavy weapons and be transferred to the opposition-held province of Idlib.
But while the government and its allies certainly have the upper hand in Aleppo, according to Sam Heller, Syria analyst and fellow with The Century Foundation, it's not clear what the endgame will look like just yet.
"The regime will not accept a partially autonomous opposition zone in half of the city, and so it's pushing for a conclusive victory. But the bussing evacuations that have taken place elsewhere have only been arranged on a much smaller scale, and in areas that were already mostly subdued militarily," says Heller.
The UN estimates that there are nearly 8,000 rebel fighters in besieged east Aleppo, 900 of whom are members of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham - the al-Qaeda-affiliated group formerly known as al-Nusra Front.
"Nothing like this has happened in an area of the size and complexity of east Aleppo, and, with multiple major armed factions inside, it seems unlikely any deal will be coordinated easily or smoothly."
By the time the Daraya deal took place in August, the suburb's population - once nearly a quarter of a million - was down to 8,000 people. There were only 800 rebel fighters.
It's not clear what the endgame in east Aleppo will look like just yet [Reuters]
Both the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers understand that waging an assault on an urban area the size of east Aleppo will be a long and bloody battle, according to Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center. "It took them years to take Daraya," says Sayigh. "East Aleppo is far bigger and far more difficult an area to take."
"They're going to focus on siege tactics to basically engineer a political deal in which the opposition agrees to surrender some of its heavy weapons, while certain categories of fighters are allowed safe passage to other rebel-controlled areas."
With two months to go before US President Barack Obama hands over the reins to President-elect Donald Trump - and even then, there is a high likelihood that Trump's Syria policy will play even more into the hands of Assad and Putin than Obama's - Russia and Assad "aren't pressed for time".
"Why would they take high risks or risk high casualties?" asks Sayigh, if starve-or-surrender policies have already proved successful in places such as Daraya and Moadamiya.
Humanitarian corridors unilaterally declared open by Russia over the summer saw few people leave Aleppo's besieged east. Damascus and Moscow blamed the rebels for "holding civilians hostage", while rebels and civilians in east Aleppo said the safe routes weren't actually all that safe.
"If there was a real desire by people to leave, more people would have crossed by now," says Sayigh. "People may still be able to hold out for a while."
Earlier this week, families attempting to escape form east Aleppo via the Kurdish-controlled neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud were forced back by gun fire.
Syria's war: 'There's no food in Aleppo's shops or markets'
Whether it is by siege-and-starvation or military might, the loss of east Aleppo will come at a "terrible human cost", according to Heller. But it will also be "a major symbolic defeat for the Syrian opposition".
"A Syrian opposition that had lost its foothold in the country's largest city will become a mostly rural insurgency, contesting Syria’s periphery instead of its main population centres and loci of control. But that’s pretty well where we are anyway. So the question is what's next."
Sitting in her first-storey apartment under a blanket to protect herself from the cold, Samah, frail and anxious, believes that the fall of east Aleppo is only a matter of time.
"The international community is witnessing massacre after massacre … the rebels are losing neighbourhoods … it's only a matter of time before the regime takes the east," she says.
Whether it is cleaning the house or fetching water from a mosque down the street, she works from the moment she wakes until the moment she goes to sleeps to keep herself from thinking. She is worn to the bone. She is exhausted.
"In the meantime though, we'll continue to suffer. It really doesn't matter any more to me [who controls the area] as long as I can get food for my family and have a safe place to live. As long as the fear and the horror end."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/longer-east-aleppo-hold-161123200320557.html
With hospitals destroyed, winter weather setting in and food running low, people in east Aleppo are running out of time.
Dylan Collins &
Hamza Abduljabbar's gnarled hands wipe the dust off the dashboard of his white Isuzu minibus.
Back hunched from decades sitting behind the wheel, Abduljabbar still wakes up each morning at 6am to check on his vehicle - the windows of which have long since been blown out by nearby air strikes - when his rounds of east Aleppo's Fardous neighbourhood would normally have begun.
"Everything is dusty these days. The bombing never stops," he says. "Anyway, there's no fuel, so the car just sits here." Five years of war and five months of siege have aged the 45-year-old father of three well beyond his years. He hasn't worked in months.
Government forces, backed by Russian air power and allied militias, began a new push last week to take control of the whole of Syria's second city, the latest offensive in the uprising-turned-war that has killed more than 400,000 people and forced nearly five million Syrians out of the country in search of safety.
The renewed bombing campaign has killed more than 400 civilians and allowed the government to take over the strategic Hanano housing district - which could effectively enable government troops to split the rebel-held east in two.
"The rebels have failed to break the siege and are losing territory, and the international community has failed to send in supplies or aid," said Abduljabbar. "My family and I are surviving day to day here under the barrel bombs and the planes. There’s nowhere else to go."
The situation in the besieged, rebel-held neighbourhoods of east Aleppo has "gone from terrible to terrifying to now barely survivable by human beings", UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien told the UN Security Council during his monthly briefing earlier this week.
Food rations pre-positioned in the city by the World Food Programme before UN access was cut off in July ran out on November 13, and aid workers have said that people in the city's east are "just days" away from starvation.
My family and I are surviving day to day here under the barrel bombs and the planes. There’s nowhere else to go.
Hamza Abduljabbar, east Aleppo resident
Food in local markets is scarce and prices have skyrocketed. Fuel and cooking gas are hard to come by in most areas. "There's no flour, no bread. Most of the bakeries have been destroyed and those that still stand are closed because there isn't any supplies," said Samah al-Ahmad.
The 32-year-old mother of four says that the only time she leaves her home in al-Ansari area is to scavenge for basics such as sugar and powdered milk.
Essentials such as salt, which three weeks ago cost 76 cents a kilo, now cost nearly $10 a kilo. The price of one kilo of sugar has jumped to well over $13. Baby formula, nearly impossible to find these days, is about $10 a package. Just three weeks ago the same package cost less than $2. One kilo of meat - a rare commodity - is upwards of $40.
All of the appliances in Samah's home have been piled into a corner. There hasn’t been any electricity for months and every household chore is done by hand. "The latest bombing has been particularly cruel," said Samah. "There is no safe place here any more."
Samah's husband, injured in an air strike last month, is bedridden. "I can't go to the hospital to get medicine because most have been destroyed … Those that still function lack some of the most basic medicines.”
There are no fully functioning hospitals in east Aleppo. The last operating medical facility was partially destroyed by an air strike on November 19, leaving up to 275,000 people without access to surgery or specialised care.
The 30 doctors who remain in the city operate in underground facilities and are running low on even the most basic of supplies - including antibiotics, IV fluids and blood bags.
"They are rationing basic supplies … If someone comes in for emergency care after a bombing and [the doctors] fear that more serious patients might soon be arriving, they might hold off on using anesthesia and save it for a patient who is in greater need,” says Elise Baker, a Syria researcher with Physicians for Human Rights.
'Everything is dusty these days. The bombing never stops,' Abduljabbar says [Reuters]
As supplies continue to dwindle, doctors have reportedly begun using half-doses of antibiotics in an effort to conserve what little resources they have left.
The government blockade on the city's rebel-controlled eastern neighbourhoods, in place since July, has forced doctors to "cut corners that just shouldn't be cut", says Baker, the effects of which could have lasting implications.
"We've heard anecdotally that people are developing resistance to antibiotics … using half-doses increases antibiotic resistance, which is a problem that will extend well beyond the end of the conflict."
As food and fuel quickly run out and winter weather sets in, Abduljabbar believes it's only a matter of time before Aleppo becomes Syria's next Daraya.
"There will be a solution in the regime’s favour and the city will be under the regime’s rule whether the rebels want it or not. But it won’t be easy," he says
READ MORE: I live in Aleppo, under siege
Government forces and members of Lebanon's Hezbollah armed group surrounded and blockaded Daraya, the rebel-held Damascus suburb, for four years until August when, due to increasing pressure on the ground - only one UN aid shipment had been let in since the beginning of the siege - rebel fighters agreed to give up their heavy weapons and be transferred to the opposition-held province of Idlib.
But while the government and its allies certainly have the upper hand in Aleppo, according to Sam Heller, Syria analyst and fellow with The Century Foundation, it's not clear what the endgame will look like just yet.
"The regime will not accept a partially autonomous opposition zone in half of the city, and so it's pushing for a conclusive victory. But the bussing evacuations that have taken place elsewhere have only been arranged on a much smaller scale, and in areas that were already mostly subdued militarily," says Heller.
The UN estimates that there are nearly 8,000 rebel fighters in besieged east Aleppo, 900 of whom are members of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham - the al-Qaeda-affiliated group formerly known as al-Nusra Front.
"Nothing like this has happened in an area of the size and complexity of east Aleppo, and, with multiple major armed factions inside, it seems unlikely any deal will be coordinated easily or smoothly."
By the time the Daraya deal took place in August, the suburb's population - once nearly a quarter of a million - was down to 8,000 people. There were only 800 rebel fighters.
It's not clear what the endgame in east Aleppo will look like just yet [Reuters]
Both the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers understand that waging an assault on an urban area the size of east Aleppo will be a long and bloody battle, according to Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center. "It took them years to take Daraya," says Sayigh. "East Aleppo is far bigger and far more difficult an area to take."
"They're going to focus on siege tactics to basically engineer a political deal in which the opposition agrees to surrender some of its heavy weapons, while certain categories of fighters are allowed safe passage to other rebel-controlled areas."
With two months to go before US President Barack Obama hands over the reins to President-elect Donald Trump - and even then, there is a high likelihood that Trump's Syria policy will play even more into the hands of Assad and Putin than Obama's - Russia and Assad "aren't pressed for time".
"Why would they take high risks or risk high casualties?" asks Sayigh, if starve-or-surrender policies have already proved successful in places such as Daraya and Moadamiya.
Humanitarian corridors unilaterally declared open by Russia over the summer saw few people leave Aleppo's besieged east. Damascus and Moscow blamed the rebels for "holding civilians hostage", while rebels and civilians in east Aleppo said the safe routes weren't actually all that safe.
"If there was a real desire by people to leave, more people would have crossed by now," says Sayigh. "People may still be able to hold out for a while."
Earlier this week, families attempting to escape form east Aleppo via the Kurdish-controlled neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud were forced back by gun fire.
Syria's war: 'There's no food in Aleppo's shops or markets'
Whether it is by siege-and-starvation or military might, the loss of east Aleppo will come at a "terrible human cost", according to Heller. But it will also be "a major symbolic defeat for the Syrian opposition".
"A Syrian opposition that had lost its foothold in the country's largest city will become a mostly rural insurgency, contesting Syria’s periphery instead of its main population centres and loci of control. But that’s pretty well where we are anyway. So the question is what's next."
Sitting in her first-storey apartment under a blanket to protect herself from the cold, Samah, frail and anxious, believes that the fall of east Aleppo is only a matter of time.
"The international community is witnessing massacre after massacre … the rebels are losing neighbourhoods … it's only a matter of time before the regime takes the east," she says.
Whether it is cleaning the house or fetching water from a mosque down the street, she works from the moment she wakes until the moment she goes to sleeps to keep herself from thinking. She is worn to the bone. She is exhausted.
"In the meantime though, we'll continue to suffer. It really doesn't matter any more to me [who controls the area] as long as I can get food for my family and have a safe place to live. As long as the fear and the horror end."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/longer-east-aleppo-hold-161123200320557.html
Hindustani78
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Reuters / Monday, November 28, 2016
A bomb hangs on a parachute while falling over the rebel-held besieged al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail
A bomb hangs on a parachute while falling over the rebel-held besieged al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail
Serpentine
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T-Rex
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Turkish army is in Syria to end rule of cruel Assad: Erdogan
Time was that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan dedicated large parts of his speeches to condemning Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for atrocities against his people, calling for his ouster and urging greater support for the rebels fighting him.
Now, as Syrian government forces capture swathes of eastern Aleppo, threatening to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold, Assad and the battle for what was once Syria’s biggest city get little more than a passing mention.
NATO member Turkey has been one of the main backers of Syria’s rebels since early in the near six-year war.
But rapprochement with Russia, one of Assad’s main allies, frustration with U.S. policy, and an overriding concern about securing its borders against Kurdish militia fighters and Islamic State have seen Ankara scale back its ambitions.
“At the moment, Turkey’s foreign policy in Syria is hostage to Russia. Russia controls the air space and Turkish soldiers are 30 km inside Syria,” said Behlul Ozkan, assistant professor of international relations at Marmara University in Istanbul.
“Turkey needs to be in agreement with Russia on every step it takes in Syria,” he said, or Turkish troops would be exposed.
In a speech on Tuesday, Erdogan condemned what he said was the failure of the United Nations in Syria and cast Turkey’s incursion in August, when it sent tanks, fighter jets and special forces over the border, as an act of exasperation.
“Close to one million people died in Syria, and they continue dying. Where is the U.N.? What are they doing? We kept saying ‘patience, patience, patience’ but could not take it anymore and entered Syria,” Erdogan said.
“We are there to bring justice. We are there to end the rule of the cruel Assad, who has been spreading state terror.”
But Turkey’s “Operation Euphrates Shield” was not about battling Assad. It aims to sweep Islamic State from a roughly 90-km (56-mile) strip of the Syrian border and prevent Kurdish militia groups from seizing territory in their wake.
Tuesday was the first time in almost a month that Erdogan had mentioned Assad by name in a major public address, according to a review of his recent speeches published on the presidency website. He made no direct reference to events in Aleppo.
A senior official from one of the Turkmen rebel brigades backed by Turkey said some 60 percent of Turkmen fighters pulled out of Aleppo in August to take part in Euphrates Shield, withdrawing from front lines against Assad’s forces.
“Of course that withdrawal had an impact. If those groups had stayed, perhaps Aleppo could have resisted more,” said the official from the Muntasir Billah Brigade, although he doubted it would have changed the course of the battle.
“They did not have much of a chance as their weapons are limited – machine guns and Kalashnikovs – while the regime and Russians have used everything from barrel bombs to warplanes,” he told a foreign media agency from the Turkish border town of Gaziantep, a rear base for some of Syria’s rebel forces.
RUSSIAN RAPPROCHEMENT
Russia has been helping forces loyal to Assad try to take back full control of Aleppo by providing training, equipment, advice and intermittent air support.
Just over a year ago, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet over Syria, prompting a breakdown in ties that was only resolved in August after Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Erdogan in St Petersburg.
The rapprochement has not changed Ankara’s position that Assad must go to restore peace in Syria, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told foreign media on Saturday.
But Erdogan has spoken with Putin at least twice over the past week, agreeing to try to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo and “coordinate efforts against international terrorism”, officials in his office have said.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also made a surprise visit to regional rival Iran, another key Assad ally, at the weekend, discussing cooperation in Syria with President Hassan Rouhani.
“The government does continue to criticise the brutal targeting of Aleppo by Assad and his allies, Russia and Iran, but it has seen that the rhetoric does not have much influence,” said Can Acun, a researcher at the SETA think-tank in Ankara.
“It is trying to achieve results through shuttle diplomacy with Iran and Russia through its bilateral ties but so far there haven’t been any meaningful positive results,” he said, adding that the international community was “turning a blind eye”.
“Turkey does not have much of a capacity in the current equation to get results on its own.”
The level of continued support from the rebels’ other backers, including the United States and Gulf, is uncertain.
President-elect Donald Trump has signalled opposition to U.S. support for the rebels, indicating he could abandon them to focus on fighting Islamic State.
Qatar’s foreign minister told foreign media this week Doha would continue to arm them even if Trump ends U.S. backing, but would not on its own supply the shoulder-fired missiles they want to defend against Syrian and Russian warplanes.
For its part, Turkey’s focus is squarely on ensuring that the Turkmen and Arab rebels it backs secure the 90 km strip of territory south of its border and prevent Kurdish militias from joining up cantons they already control on either side. Ankara fears such a move would stoke Kurdish separatism at home.
Their immediate challenge is securing al-Bab, an Islamic State-held city northeast of Aleppo which Kurdish-led fighters are racing to take, and which lies close to the front lines of Assad’s allies.
Turkish-backed forces have made rapid gains since August, but largely through less heavily populated areas. Urban warfare around al-Bab is already taking a heavier toll. Five Turkish soldiers have been killed in the past week alone, three of them in a suspected Syrian government air strike.
“Right now the question is whether Russia will allow Turkey to seize al-Bab,” said the Muntasir Billah Brigade official.
“There’s a political equation here. It’s not about whether Turkey has enough tanks, soldiers and weapons, but whether there’s any room for such a move from Turkey in the equation.”
TWO SOLDIERS IN NORTHERN SYRIA MISSING
The Turkish military said it lost contact on Tuesday with two of its soldiers deployed in northern Syria, although it stopped short of confirming an Islamic State claim that the militant group had kidnapped a pair of Turkish soldiers.
The army said that contact was lost at around 3:30 p.m. local time (1230 GMT). It did not give any further details.
Islamic State’s Amaq news agency earlier said that Islamic State fighters had captured two Turkish soldiers near a village west of al-Bab in the Aleppo countryside.
Turkey launched an incursion into northern Syria in August, sending tanks, fighter jets and special forces over the border. It aims to sweep Islamic State from a roughly 90-km (56-mile) strip of the Syrian border and prevent Kurdish militia groups from seizing territory in their wake.
Islamic State is believed to have kidnapped a Turkish soldier near Turkey’s border with Syria in the summer of 2015. His whereabouts are still unknown.
Time was that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan dedicated large parts of his speeches to condemning Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for atrocities against his people, calling for his ouster and urging greater support for the rebels fighting him.
Now, as Syrian government forces capture swathes of eastern Aleppo, threatening to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold, Assad and the battle for what was once Syria’s biggest city get little more than a passing mention.
NATO member Turkey has been one of the main backers of Syria’s rebels since early in the near six-year war.
But rapprochement with Russia, one of Assad’s main allies, frustration with U.S. policy, and an overriding concern about securing its borders against Kurdish militia fighters and Islamic State have seen Ankara scale back its ambitions.
“At the moment, Turkey’s foreign policy in Syria is hostage to Russia. Russia controls the air space and Turkish soldiers are 30 km inside Syria,” said Behlul Ozkan, assistant professor of international relations at Marmara University in Istanbul.
“Turkey needs to be in agreement with Russia on every step it takes in Syria,” he said, or Turkish troops would be exposed.
In a speech on Tuesday, Erdogan condemned what he said was the failure of the United Nations in Syria and cast Turkey’s incursion in August, when it sent tanks, fighter jets and special forces over the border, as an act of exasperation.
“Close to one million people died in Syria, and they continue dying. Where is the U.N.? What are they doing? We kept saying ‘patience, patience, patience’ but could not take it anymore and entered Syria,” Erdogan said.
“We are there to bring justice. We are there to end the rule of the cruel Assad, who has been spreading state terror.”
But Turkey’s “Operation Euphrates Shield” was not about battling Assad. It aims to sweep Islamic State from a roughly 90-km (56-mile) strip of the Syrian border and prevent Kurdish militia groups from seizing territory in their wake.
Tuesday was the first time in almost a month that Erdogan had mentioned Assad by name in a major public address, according to a review of his recent speeches published on the presidency website. He made no direct reference to events in Aleppo.
A senior official from one of the Turkmen rebel brigades backed by Turkey said some 60 percent of Turkmen fighters pulled out of Aleppo in August to take part in Euphrates Shield, withdrawing from front lines against Assad’s forces.
“Of course that withdrawal had an impact. If those groups had stayed, perhaps Aleppo could have resisted more,” said the official from the Muntasir Billah Brigade, although he doubted it would have changed the course of the battle.
“They did not have much of a chance as their weapons are limited – machine guns and Kalashnikovs – while the regime and Russians have used everything from barrel bombs to warplanes,” he told a foreign media agency from the Turkish border town of Gaziantep, a rear base for some of Syria’s rebel forces.
RUSSIAN RAPPROCHEMENT
Russia has been helping forces loyal to Assad try to take back full control of Aleppo by providing training, equipment, advice and intermittent air support.
Just over a year ago, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet over Syria, prompting a breakdown in ties that was only resolved in August after Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Erdogan in St Petersburg.
The rapprochement has not changed Ankara’s position that Assad must go to restore peace in Syria, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told foreign media on Saturday.
But Erdogan has spoken with Putin at least twice over the past week, agreeing to try to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo and “coordinate efforts against international terrorism”, officials in his office have said.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also made a surprise visit to regional rival Iran, another key Assad ally, at the weekend, discussing cooperation in Syria with President Hassan Rouhani.
“The government does continue to criticise the brutal targeting of Aleppo by Assad and his allies, Russia and Iran, but it has seen that the rhetoric does not have much influence,” said Can Acun, a researcher at the SETA think-tank in Ankara.
“It is trying to achieve results through shuttle diplomacy with Iran and Russia through its bilateral ties but so far there haven’t been any meaningful positive results,” he said, adding that the international community was “turning a blind eye”.
“Turkey does not have much of a capacity in the current equation to get results on its own.”
The level of continued support from the rebels’ other backers, including the United States and Gulf, is uncertain.
President-elect Donald Trump has signalled opposition to U.S. support for the rebels, indicating he could abandon them to focus on fighting Islamic State.
Qatar’s foreign minister told foreign media this week Doha would continue to arm them even if Trump ends U.S. backing, but would not on its own supply the shoulder-fired missiles they want to defend against Syrian and Russian warplanes.
For its part, Turkey’s focus is squarely on ensuring that the Turkmen and Arab rebels it backs secure the 90 km strip of territory south of its border and prevent Kurdish militias from joining up cantons they already control on either side. Ankara fears such a move would stoke Kurdish separatism at home.
Their immediate challenge is securing al-Bab, an Islamic State-held city northeast of Aleppo which Kurdish-led fighters are racing to take, and which lies close to the front lines of Assad’s allies.
Turkish-backed forces have made rapid gains since August, but largely through less heavily populated areas. Urban warfare around al-Bab is already taking a heavier toll. Five Turkish soldiers have been killed in the past week alone, three of them in a suspected Syrian government air strike.
“Right now the question is whether Russia will allow Turkey to seize al-Bab,” said the Muntasir Billah Brigade official.
“There’s a political equation here. It’s not about whether Turkey has enough tanks, soldiers and weapons, but whether there’s any room for such a move from Turkey in the equation.”
TWO SOLDIERS IN NORTHERN SYRIA MISSING
The Turkish military said it lost contact on Tuesday with two of its soldiers deployed in northern Syria, although it stopped short of confirming an Islamic State claim that the militant group had kidnapped a pair of Turkish soldiers.
The army said that contact was lost at around 3:30 p.m. local time (1230 GMT). It did not give any further details.
Islamic State’s Amaq news agency earlier said that Islamic State fighters had captured two Turkish soldiers near a village west of al-Bab in the Aleppo countryside.
Turkey launched an incursion into northern Syria in August, sending tanks, fighter jets and special forces over the border. It aims to sweep Islamic State from a roughly 90-km (56-mile) strip of the Syrian border and prevent Kurdish militia groups from seizing territory in their wake.
Islamic State is believed to have kidnapped a Turkish soldier near Turkey’s border with Syria in the summer of 2015. His whereabouts are still unknown.
