In April, Syrian rebel fighters and their US special-forces trainers repulsed an ISIS attack in an hours-long battle marked by suicide bombers and coalition airstrikes.
The battle took place at al Tanf near the Syria-Iraq border, and the camp there is still used by US and UK personnel to train Western-backed fighters.
But with ISIS’ territorial presence in Syria continuing to erode, al Tanf and the area around it — near the intersection of the Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian borders — looks to be the site of a potential clash between the US-led coalition, its local partners, and the Assad regime and its partners, backed by Iran.
With US-backed forces gearing up to liberate ISIS‘ self-proclaimed capital in Raqqa and ISIS losing ground elsewhere in the Syria, combatants in the country are reportedly trying to position themselves to assume control of territory vacated by terrorist group.
I just thought about this possible scenario...Does anyone think it might be possible that once Raqqa falls and the SDF, Assad/Russians/Iranians meet the Iraqi Defense Forces and Iranian Militias from Iraq across the border from each other...that it might be possible that the Iraqi Shia Militias (and their Iranian handlers) hook up with Assad's government troops and their Iranian handlers and turn on both the SDF (read "Kurds) and the Iraqi Army?
I know that doesn't seem plausible since I don't believe that Assad has any aspirations of taking any Iraqi territory, but, obviously he could turn on the Kurds, which would leave the Iraqi Army kind of in the middle since the Shia militias and Assad are both heavily influenced and handled by Iran.
That would really mess things up...and break up the power base in Bagdad, possibly bring the Iraqi Peshmerga in on the side of the SDF/YPG. If the Bagdad government loses control of the militias, they lose legitimacy, and could fall back into Sunni/Shia civil war, which would pave the way for Iran to control a Shia swath from their border all the way to the Mediterranean.