Kurdish-Nusra battle becoming war within a war in northern Syria

McClatchy ^ | Tuesday, July 23, 2013 | Roy Gutman

[SunkenCiv]

The Kurdish militia captured the border town of Ras al Ayn on Sunday, which had been under rebel control since last November. A day later, the United States said it was "very concerned" at reports that the militia was about to declare self-rule in northern Syria. "Such a declaration is highly provocative, as it will certainly exacerbate tensions between Arabs and Kurds," Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Monday.

Turkey, which embarked on a broad peace process in March with Kurdish militants at home, has warned that it won't tolerate an autonomous Kurdish province across the Syrian border. This week, the Turkish army warned that it had taken "all necessary precautions against threats across the border" and the deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, implied that the establishment of a de facto Kurdish entity in northern Syria might put Syria's territorial integrity in jeopardy.

"We have said that we are not going to accept any de facto entities that would be established in Syria by any ethnic groups or sects," he said.

The fear is that a Kurdish entity in Syria would revive demands for a Kurdish nation made up of predominantly Kurdish areas of Turkey, Syria and Iran in combination with the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq.

The other risk in the fighting is that if the Nusra Front prevails, it might be able, with the area's mineral resources, to set up a self-sustaining autonomous al Qaida state.

[MinorityRepublican]

That’s the best map of the current situation. But for the time being it doesn’t seem like Al-Qaeda can be stopped.

[SunkenCiv]

The more foreign al-Qaeda comes in, the more likely they are to fight Assad’s forces, but also the more likely they are to fracture; meanwhile, the non-jihadists in the opposition will let them do both, and regroup, probably outside the country (in Jordan and in Lebanon, and somewhat in Turkey). This will also benefit the Kurds.

[MinorityRepublican]

Yeah the secular rebels in the Free Syrian Army hates Al-Qaeda fanatics. Read somewhere recently that both sides clashed.

[MinorityRepublican]

Yeah the secular rebels in the Free Syrian Army hates Al-Qaeda fanatics. Read somewhere recently that both sides clashed.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, the Nusra jackoffs wanted to meet to coordinate strategy (sic) and murder-one’d an FSA leader. In addition, none of the muzzie militias which remain independent of al-Nusra like ‘em. That joker in Qatar (well, he was in Qatar, he’s been kicked out by the new poobah) who called on all muzzies to converge on Syria will have wound up doing more damage to al-Nusra ascendancy than any other single person.