(Jerusalem Post) Seth J. Frantzman - Very few Turkish soldiers have participated in Turkey's offensive into northeast Syria, with Ankara opting instead to use Syrian rebel forces to do the heavy lifting. These forces, who are a mix of jihadists and rabble, loot homes, murder civilians, mutilate dead bodies, and shout ISIS slogans about beheading infidels. They fire mortars at medics and at U.S. patrols. They even seized Syrian regime soldiers and Russia had to get them released. The "revolutionaries" who once fought Assad are being sent to attack Kurds in eastern Syria. Turkey purposely doesn't train or arm them well, leaving many of the factions to act like little more than armed gangs or militias. Turkey just wanted to give them some berets and redirect them to eastern Syria, hoping that they would fight to the death to smash the American-backed SDF.
2019-11-05 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive