On Thursday, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed and dozens more wounded during airstrikes conducted by the Syrian Air Force (SAF) in Idlib province.
The incident comes at a time where tensions in Northern Syria are sky-high between the Syrian military, Russian forces, and the invading Turkish army and its local proxies. For the past weeks, Syrian government forces, with the support of the Russian military, have been trying to recapture the province of Idlib from rebel forces that are supported by Turkey.
At first, it wasn’t clear who conducted the airstrikes. But it later emerged that it was the SAF. Turkey responded by striking at Syrian military targets with artillery and aircraft. Moreover, and far more concerning, Turkey has opened its borders with Europe in an attempt to flood the European Union (E.U.) with refugees, essentially weaponizing the war-stricken people. And this doesn’t concern a few thousand refugees. There are close to five million displaced persons inside Turkey.
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On Thursday, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed and dozens more wounded during airstrikes conducted by the Syrian Air Force (SAF) in Idlib province.
The incident comes at a time where tensions in Northern Syria are sky-high between the Syrian military, Russian forces, and the invading Turkish army and its local proxies. For the past weeks, Syrian government forces, with the support of the Russian military, have been trying to recapture the province of Idlib from rebel forces that are supported by Turkey.
At first, it wasn’t clear who conducted the airstrikes. But it later emerged that it was the SAF. Turkey responded by striking at Syrian military targets with artillery and aircraft. Moreover, and far more concerning, Turkey has opened its borders with Europe in an attempt to flood the European Union (E.U.) with refugees, essentially weaponizing the war-stricken people. And this doesn’t concern a few thousand refugees. There are close to five million displaced persons inside Turkey.
Russia, who has been a stalwart supporter of the Syrian government ever since the Syrian Civil War broke out, has denied any involvement in the airstrikes. Moscow, in fact, is trying to cool down things by acting as a mediator between Turkey and the Syrian regime.
But, according to reports from Moscow, the Russian Black Sea fleet is sending two missile cruisers in Syria.
This is the Turkish military’s worst loss of life in a single incident in over 30 years.
A State Department spokesperson said that “we stand by our NATO ally Turkey and continue to call for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia and Iranian-backed forces,” adding that the U.S. “is looking at options on how we can best support Turkey in this crisis.”
Turkey acts like a spoiled little brat. It is overreaching (invasion of northern Syria and troop deployment in Libya) in an attempt to get some candy (displace the Kurds of Syria in the former and emplace a friendly Libyan regime that would support its baseless claims in the Eastern Mediterranean in the latter). And now that it got spanked for trying to get the candy, it is crying murder and wreaking havoc in the house (opening its borders and trying to flood Europe with refugees).
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