Turkey targets Kurdish forces south of Syria's Jarablus

Al-Jazeera ^ | 28 August 2016 | Dylan Collins

[BlackVeil]

Turkish jets and artillery have targeted Kurdish forces south of the strategic town of Jarablus, according to a monitor and local sources, as Turkey continues a major military offensive inside northern Syria.

Turkey first sent tanks across the border on Wednesday as part of a two-pronged operation against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters, as well as Kurdish-led forces.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday's air strikes and shelling hit the village of Amarneh, ...

[BlackVeil]

The mask is off! Turkey goes after the Kurds. This is not a campaign against ISIS, and it is safe to predict that if the Kurdish militias are driven out, then ISIS will mysteriously return, and Turkey won't be "able" to stop them.

[Truth29]

And it looks like the Kurds have been abandoned by everybody, again.

[chemical_boy]

Turkey invaded twos days after the kurds (SDF) took Manbij, ISIS last external supply route, its not a coincidence

[Navy Patriot]

Turkey goes after the Kurds. This is not a campaign against ISIS...

Agree.

The Kurds should have checked to see who their friends really are before they jump into battle. This will probably cost 'em their free Kurdistan. Oh well whats another hundred years.

[chemical_boy]

and yet the Kurds are taking out Turkish Tanks and BMPs

[Iron Munro]

Taking advantage of the turmoil to screw over the only halfway decent muslims around.

[BlackVeil]

Very good point. That is a strategic shift. I had not spotted that.

[disndat]

I thought the US military was embedded with the Kurds.

[mvonfr]

US sold the Kurds down the river.

Biden Met by Snubs as He Seeks to Mollify Turkey’s Angry Erdogan. -- Biden tried to resist the charms of the enraged Sultan, but failed.

The Kurds are fighting but doomed, nobody would supply them. And the embedded US special forces are there to stab them in the back, if needed.

Incidentally, did anyone notice that ISIS did not take any losses in this new war? Turks did, Kurds did, ISIS did not. One wonders just why.... :P

[mvonfr]

Turks display captured terrorists .. Kurds, naturally.

[silverleaf]

I am suspicious this is the result of another U.S. policy gone wrong
It sounds like we embedded US special forces in SYRIA with the Kurds to create the “ SDF” as another way to attack Assad once it became politically and militarily difficult to keep supporting ISIS ( since Putin and wiki leaks showed who really created and backed ISIS.

But the Kurds must have thought they were being green lighted to take and hold their own claimed territory- militantly so against Syrian Christian arab villagers -

And apparently no one consulted Erdogan about the “SDF” or about carving off territory in northern SYRIA to be held by Kurds

Sounds like another obama administration goat rope to me

[vladimir998]

The Turks suck.

[mvonfr]

Not quite, SDF existed before US got interested; back in January McCain complained about Russians having too much influence with SDF -- at that time only Russia supplied them weapons, hoping them to continue the alliance with the Syrians.

US support for SDF came a bit later, perhaps McCain's bitching contributed to this.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

This will probably cost 'em their free Kurdistan.

Just wait till the Kurds start claiming parts of the USA as "Kurdistan". Then you'll see what the problem is with them.

[Navy Patriot]

It sounds like we embedded US special forces in SYRIA with the Kurds to create the “ SDF” as another way to attack Assad once it became politically and militarily difficult to keep supporting ISIS

But the Kurds must have thought they were being green lighted to take and hold their own claimed territory- militantly so against Syrian Christian arab villagers...

"You can keep your country if you like it", just give these Christians the Armenian treatment, like before...

And apparently no one consulted Erdogan about the “SDF” or about carving off territory in northern SYRIA to be held by Kurds

Or Assad to whom the Christians have been loyal.

Yep the Kurds took the bait and became Obama's stooges, but they'll get the Obama reward.

[BlackVeil]

Incidentally, did anyone notice that ISIS did not take any losses in this new war? Turks did, Kurds did, ISIS did not. One wonders just why.... :P

Yes, I noticed that.

It looked like a set up - as if ISIS had orders from Turkey to withdraw to some safe place, ready to return at the right time.

What an outrageous conspiracy theory I just wrote up - it could not possibly be true, could it?

[mvonfr]

Sorry to upset you but your conspiracy theory does not go too far; it is obvious that IS is vacating the areas so that the Turks can take them, while the Kurds resist the invasion.

Here is a more outrageous theory that I'm beginning to believe in: some of ISIS is changing their labels to FSA (keep in mind that the Turks have good relations with Islamists of both subspecies). There is now a proof of it too: one of the invasion FSA commanders was an ISIS, the commander in Mosul 2015. Of course, this is only one guy but who tracks low-level FSA/Isis people?

Regardless, it is indeed a setup, and it may be way deeper than you think.