A: They're all dead now.
Posted on 12/06/2016 7:10:47 PM PST by Mariner
A: They're all dead now.
One has to wonder why Turkey was moving self-propelled howitzers and tanks toward Aleppo.
I know they have hundreds of irregulars, maybe thousands, directly involved and were the beating heart of “rebel” forces.
All I can think of is that their guys must be surrounded with no way out. And that would explain why Russia and the US are in talks to evac them.
But surely they didn’t think they’d be able to get away with it.
The Turks definitely want to push the Kurds back across the river, and prevent them from linking the Kurdish enclaves of Kobane and Afrin into a big Kurdish region right on the Turkish border. They initially claimed that their Euphrates Shield Operation was to secure a safe zone just inside the Syrian border with Turkey for refugees, but they were obviously countering Kurdish advances.
Turkish intentions have seemed to broadened recently toward directly unseating Assad, rather than just secretly supporting surrogates to do it (Erdogan recently made a statement to that effect, which he later retracted).
Moving additional heavy combat forces across the border was getting pretty significant - 15 Leopard tanks and 15 Armored Personnel Carriers, with additional heavy artillery in one day - that is a large flow of forces.
A serious armor thrust could punch through into Eastern Aleppo in one day to resupply or evacuate the rebels, if they were allowed to build up around al Bab. Or they could dig into al Bab, and refuse to leave. Or they could decisively defeat the Kurds, which the Syrian regime could use in the future as a counter to Turkey.
“Are these good rebels or bad rebels who are being driven from Aleppo?”
ALL rebels against Assad are bad rebels.
The rebels have wrapped themselves in "Muslim body armor", also known as women and children.
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