Syria Masses Tanks On Border With Turkey

The Times of Israel ^ | June 29, 2012

[Strategy]

The Assad regime has massed approximately 170 tanks near the Turkish border, according to an unconfirmed report on Friday by a general in the Free Syrian Army.

General Mustafa al-Sheikh told Reuters that the tanks are now located 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border, northeast of Aleppo.

"They either want to move toward the border to confront Turkish troops stationed there, or they are planning to attack rebels in towns near the border," al-Sheikh said.

The move comes after Turkey on Thursday sent anti-aircraft guns, rocket launchers and other fortifications to the border, marking an escalation in hostilities between the two countries.

[COBOL2Java]

Meanwhile, in our nation's capital...

[Slings and Arrows]

Let them fight. Long and hard.

[AU72]

It will be a Turkey Shoot.

[fortheDeclaration]

Wasn't the shooting down of the jet an accident?

Why all the flexing?

[PapaBear3625]

Turkey has 14 armored brigades. Any fight between Syria and Turkey will be short (unless Russia or Iran join in). Turkey is sending its own military convoy towards the border.

[corkoman]

I hope the CNN camera dudes are right there on the front to record the dust-up.

[donozark]

Looks like another part of the desert is about to be littered with Russian metal. Would love to own the scrapper franchise in the Middle East! I mean seriously, is there ANY ME Country that is not littered with the destroyed hulks of Russian Armor?

[FreeAtlanta]

I wish CNN, MSNBC, NBC, NPR, CBS would all move their whole news rooms to the Border between Syria and Turkey to cover this.

[bergmeid]

Muslims threatening muslims. Is there a downside?

[McGruff]

Yeah, who do we want to win? Neither?

[Robe]

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Muslims threatening muslims. Is there a downside?

Not that I can see. They will blame Israel and America no matter what happens.

[SkyDancer]

Assad spells his name wrong.

[Tallguy]

I might agree with that sentiment except that Turkey is a member of NATO, and Syria has a formal defensive pact with Russia. Things could get out of control very quickly especially with Barry Soetero at the controls.

[Tallguy]

Turkey needs a lot of that armor elsewhere — like on the border with Russia. In addition, much of the Turkish armor is out of date — M60’s & M48’s. They only have around 400 Leopard 2A4’s. Bet you know where they are stationed (not Syria).

[edpc]

If I had to guess, I would say Assad is goading the immediate neighbors in an attempt to galvanize the country against a threat from a common enemy. We've seen Iran attempt the same thing with the anti-US/Israel rhetoric.

We know Assad is an Iranian puppet, so it stands to reason he'd follow their orders/example.

[C19fan]

Although as with the F-4 Phantoms Turkey uses these M-48s and 60s have been upgraded with Israeli help.

[PapaBear3625]

The big question will be: how many Syrian soldiers are going to want to fight Turkey in order to keep the Assad regime in power?