Posted on 04/12/2017 3:21:20 AM PDT by drewh
Several US engineering teams are working round the clock to build a big new air base in northern Syria after completing the expansion of another four. They are all situated in the Syrian borderland with Iraq, military forces report.
This was going on over the weekend as senators, news correspondents and commentators were outguessing each other over whether the US missile attack on the Syrian Shayrat air base, in retaliation for the Assad regime’s chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, was a one-off or the start of a new series.
As the White House parried those questions, the Trump administration was going full steam ahead on the massive project of preparing to pull US air force units out of the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, in active American use since 2002.
Those units were in the middle of a big moving job to the five new and expanded air bases in Syria. Their hub is to be Tabqa, which is just 40km west of the Islamic State’s Syrian capital, Raqqa. The other five are Hajar airport in the Rmelan region, two small air fields serving farm transport in Qamishli, which have been converted to military us; and a fifth in the Kurdish Kobani enclave north of Aleppo near the Syrian-Turkish border. Tabqa is also becoming the main assembly-point for the joint US, Kurdish, tribal Arab force that is coming together in readiness for a major charge on Raqqa.
When the work is finished, the rising complex of air bases will enable America to deploy twice as many warplanes and helicopters in Syria as the Russians currently maintain.
The site of the Tabqa air field was captured as recently as late March by the Syrian Democratic Force (Kurdish-Arab fighters) which were flown in and dropped there by the US Air Force’s Air Mobility Command. It was quickly dubbed “Incirlik 2” or after the US command center running the Iraqi military offensive against ISIS in Mosul.
Tabqa is designed to accommodate the 2,500 US military personnel housed at Incirlik. Like the Americans, the German Bundeswehr is also on the point of quitting Incirlik and eying a number of new locations in Cyprus and Jordan. The Germans are pulling out over the crisis in their relations with Ankara. The Americans are quitting because President Donald Trump wants to chill US ties with Turkish President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan and cooperation with the Turkish army.
The five US bases in Syria are part of Trump’s three-pronged strategy which aims at a) fighting Islamist terror; b) blocking Iran’s land and air access to Syria; and c) providing the enclaves of the Syrian Kurdish-PYD-YPG with a military shield against the Turkish army.
Fake
It was in the middle of the night. 7.+ magnitude.
We had been experiencing many break-ins in the neighborhood, and I was awakened by the rattling of the doors and windows. I thought it was a burglar trying to get in.
Shook hubbie to wake up....and I’m saying, “Shoosh! Shoosh!’, for him to be quiet, and then the portable clothes rack, flew across the floor; when I finally realized what it could be, the word *earthquake* was caught in my throat; no words came out.
We were warned to stand in a doorway in an earthquake; we ran out of the house pell-mell, and ALL the Turkish neighbors were jumping in their cars driving as far away from buildings that they could get, into the countryside. And they never came home that night, except the next day. We were left, shaking our heads; it was eerie. Such an experience.
Some long time later, we were having a cook-out with our CO , talking about earthquakes, of all things, and the ground began to ripple; like waves on an ocean; never saw anything like that since. Was glad to leave that kind of event behind. :)
Yeah ? Well the moon is made of green cheese but you don’t see me going around blabbing about it to everyone using the www !
MODS- please pull this crap for the dignity of Free Republic.
Fake. Fake. Fake. Fake. Fake.
Incorrect on Incirlik which was only recently reoccupied.
Check it out. US presence at Incirlik was minimal prior to the outbreak of Arab Spring and then its transposition to Syria. US types were acting out of Irbil when it was decided to go back into Incirlik. Many who opposed Erdogan thought it was a big mistake. Which it turned out to be.
So the people I know there, the people I knew were there, and the people I know who are still there are not there? And the real truth is your goofball nonsense? Too weird.
Fang did not want me to go over there with him. He didn’t
trust the Turkish customs. I guess some of the stuff he
had heard about women being thrown in jail at the drop of a
hat may have been exaggerated. His job in the Air Force
was in Payroll. He was stationed in Columbus, Mississippi
prior to Turkey. Was in Turkey about a year; then he got
sent to Greece for a month. He made Staff Sergeant in
less than 4 yrs. (I think he enjoyed Greece more than he did
Turkey.) - If we ever get one here, it’ll be most likely
the New Madrid faultline.
You obviously can’t read. I never said there weren’t people there, or deny that they are preparing to leave. I have only said that the moribund base was revived with the Arab Spring, and some elements were moved their from Kurdistan. And that the re-opening was a mistake. Which it was and is proved by the fact that once again we are getting out of there. Got it?
Just ordered it. Sounds good, although my first trip there was in 1990.
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