[GeronL]

I saw an article saying the FSA had moved their HQ from Turkey back into Syria... or something. Is this related?

Why are the rebels trying to prod Turkey into this war?

[Lera]

Why are the rebels trying to prod Turkey into this war?

The rebels are Sunni , Turkey is Sunni.
This isn't about freedom in Syria
It's about forming a caliphate and you can't form one when you have people who are entrenched in their power .None of the old leaders were going to step down and hand their power off to another , so they all need to be over thrown and replaced with people who are not entrenched and have nothing to lose by handing that power over to one central leader .
Why Turkey ? Because they are the only country who was able to handle it before (no Arab country could handle it) This is all about forming a caliphate where Sharia law is the constitution .

[SunkenCiv]

Turkey has hosted refugees since the trickle became a flood, iow, after Assad started leveling whole towns formerly filled with Syrian citizens. The Free Syrian Army originated something like a year ago, and Turkey let the leadership HQ on Turkish soil. Turkey’s population is (like Syria) a bit of this, and a bit of that, but of the Muzzie population, the Sunni-Alawite split is roughly the same. Also, there are Kurds living in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and a few other countries, basically a contiguous area crossing multiple borders. Back when, the Shah of Iran supported a Kurdish faction operating in northern Iraq, and the other Kurdish factions began life the same way, but with different benefactors. A faction that is supported by one regime attacks other regimes, but I don’t think they typically fight much amongst themselves.