WILL TURKEY TAKE OVER? The rebel militias told Turkey six months ago that they planned a big offensive against Assad’s forces. Because Turkey has been backing Syrian rebels since the civil war began. Those communications convinced them that they had Turkey’s tacit approval. Even though Turkey called the group that hatched the plan–Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—a terror group.
Two weeks ago, the rebel alliance finally launched the offensive, taking everyone else by surprise. Then Sunday they took Damascus, sending the Assad family fleeing. The Assads had ruled for five decades, including the last 15 years while Syria’s civil war raged.
But Israel had demoralized Syria’s forces with recent strikes against Assad’s allies Hezbollah and Iran. Israel had killed top Hezbollah leaders in both Iran and Lebanon and Iran. By using remote controls, it had exploded hundreds of Hezbollah cellphones and pagers. And it had disabled Iran’s air defenses in response to Iran raining hundreds of ineffective missiles on Israel.
Moreover, Syria’s ally Russia had grown too preoccupied with its war in Ukraine to bother much with Syria. Syria’s own armed forces had become so corrupt that its tanks and planes had no fuel to counter-attack.
Turkey seizes Syrian land in north, Israel seizes Syrian land in south
Of course, Turkey denied that it had consented to this attack by its rebel proxies beforehand. But it stands the most to gain from Assad’s fall. Already it has seized swaths of territory from the US-backed Kurds across Turkey’s southern border.
Turkey’s president Erdogan has ambitions to become caliph over a new Islamic Ottoman empire. Will he use his influence over the currently divided rebels to gain more ground in Syria? Perhaps over the entire country?
Israel has taken the precaution of occupying the demilitarized land in its buffer zone with Syria. Already it has struck suspected chemical weapon sites in Syria. And it plans to destroy Syria’s heavy strategic weaponry at other sites. It wants to weaken Syria before those weapons fall into the hands of its militant Islamic enemies. And with Iran weakening, Turkey could become its most powerful enemy of all.
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Map: Syria_Ethnic map, Institute for Study of War, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
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