Turkey Leads US-Sponsored Military Encirclement of Syria!
- Turkey leads US-sponsored Military Encirclement of Syria!
by Chris Marsden, http://www.globalresearch.ca/
Despite widely reported concerns of blowback in Syria due to the arming of jihadist groups, a military build-up on Syria’s borders is proceeding apace.
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Racep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist government in Turkey is leading the way, using the pretext of stray mortar fire from Syria that killed five civilians to legitimise the deployment of 250 tanks, jets, helicopter gunships, troops, artillery emplacements and antiaircraft batteries on the border.
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The Turkish Parliament recently granted war powers to Erdogan to send troops into Syria. Daily targeting of Syrian facilities was followed last week by the use of F16s to force down a civilian Syrian Airlines Airbus en route to Damascus from Moscow, with claims that it was carrying Russian weaponry.
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Erdogan used the United Nations Security Council as a platform to attack Russia and China—“one or two members of the permanent five”—for vetoing anti-Syrian resolutions and demand an overhaul of the Security Council.
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Turkey, along with the Gulf States led by Qatar, is also behind a push to unite Syria’s divided opposition forces, with the explicit aim of overcoming the qualms of the Western powers over arming the opposition and backing it militarily. There is an agreement to announce a joint leadership on November 4 at a conference in Qatar, just two days before the US presidential elections.
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Foreign supporters “are telling us: ‘Sort yourselves out and unite, we need a clear and credible side to provide it with quality weapons,’” a source said.
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Ensuring an effective command structure under the nominal discipline of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the actual control of Turkey and its allies requires the inclusion of rival military leaders Riad al-Asaad, Mustafa Sheikh and Mohammad Haj Ali (all defectors from the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad), as well as various leaders of provincial military councils inside Syria. Funds are also being funneled into the Local Coordinating Committees—hitherto held up by various ex-left groups around the world as being independent of the imperialist powers.
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UN Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi is making great play of urging Iran to arrange a four-day cease-fire beginning October 25 to mark the Muslim religious holiday of Eid al-Adha. He is saying less about a proposal, more indicative of the UN’s role, to dispatch a 3,000-strong troop force to Syria.
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The Daily Telegraph reported that Brahimi “has spent recent weeks quietly sounding out which countries would be willing to contribute soldiers” to such a force, ostensibly to be made operable following a future truce.
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The direct involvement of US and British forces would be “unlikely”, given their role in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, so Brahimi “is thought to be looking at more nations that currently contribute to Unifil, the 15,000-strong mission set up to police Israel’s borders with Lebanon.”
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These include Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Ireland—“one of which would be expected to play a leading role in the Syria peacekeeping force.”
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The proposal was leaked by the Syrian National Council (SNC), with whom Brahami met in Turkey at the weekend. On Monday, the SNC was meeting for a two-day summit in the Qatari capital, Doha. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, took the occasion to push for military intervention in Syria. He told reporters, “Any mission that is not well armed will not fulfil its aim. For this, it must have enough members and equipment to carry out its duty.”
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The SNC’s 35-member general secretariat was meeting in Doha to discuss “the establishment of mechanisms to administer the areas which have been liberated” in Syria, according to sources.
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Discussions of the direct involvement of European troops in Syria are in line with confirmed reports that the US and Britain have despatched military forces to Jordan, for the purported purpose of policing its border and preventing a spill-over of the conflict.
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