Posted on 10/12/2019 5:37:55 AM PDT by robowombat
U.S. Forces Come Under Turkish Fire As Ankara Presses On In Syria
By RFE/RL October 12, 2019
U.S. troops at a military outpost in northeast Syria came under artillery fire from Turkish positions, as Ankara's forces pressed on with their offensive against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters.
The Pentagon on October 11 confirmed earlier reports that said an explosion rocked the site near the city of Kobani, illustrating the risk of U.S. and Turkish forces inadvertently coming into conflict in the tense region.
"The explosion occurred within a few hundred meters of a location outside the Security Mechanism zone and in an area known by the Turks to have U.S. forces present," Navy Captain Brook DeWalt, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.
DeWalt said no troops were injured and that U.S. forces have not been withdraw from a larger base in Kobani following the incident, although officials said a small number of U.S. forces have vacated the outpost.
Following the incident, the Pentagon stressed the need for Turkey to avoid endangering any of the 1,000 U.S. forces still inside Syria as Ankara continues its assault on U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters in the region.
"The Turkish military is fully aware -- down to explicit grid coordinate detail -- of the locations of U.S. forces," said U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Everyone is fully aware that we are the United States military. We retain the right of self-defense," Milley said.
The Turkish Defense Ministry said its forces were responding to harassing fire that originated near the U.S. military's Kobane outpost in Syria, but it said it was taking all steps to ensure that no U.S. post was hit.
"The firing was ceased as a result of the issue being relayed to us by the U.S.," the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Brett McGurk, a former special U.S. envoy to the region who resigned in December, claimed the blast was no accident.
"Turkish forces have fired on a declared U.S. military outpost in northern Syria. Turkey knows all of our locations down to the precise grid coordinate as confirmed…only two hours ago. This was not a mistake," wrote McGurk, who has accused President Donald Trump of betraying Washington's Syrian Kurd allies.
The White House on October 6 announced a surprise decision by Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from areas along the Syrian border with Turkey, leaving Kurdish-led forces in the region vulnerable to an incursion by the Turkish armed forces.
The United States has about 1,000 troops in Syria, and 50 of them have been pulled out from the border area and redeployed elsewhere in the country "where they aren't in the crossfire," a senior U.S. administration official said on October 7.
The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which dominate the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria, has been key U.S. allies in defeating the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in the war-torn country.
However, Ankara brands the militia a terrorist organization because of its links to Kurdish militants who have fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for three decades.
With Ankara's forces pushing deeper into Syrian territory against Syrian Kurdish fighters and international calls mounting for Turkey to end the three-day operation, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on October 11 that he and other U.S. officials had "urged them to stop this incursion," adding that several other NATO members had done the same.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned that new sanctions were being prepared and would be imposed on Ankara should Turkey overstep in Syria following a warning by Trump that it should conduct its assault in a "humane" manner.
A spokesman for Turkey's Foreign Ministry responded by saying, "No one should doubt that Turkey will have a tit-for-tat response to possible U.S. sanctions within the framework of full reciprocity."
Meanwhile, Russia on October 11 blocked a U.S.-drafted UN Security Council statement calling on Turkey to halt the military offensive. China supported Moscow's effort to block the statement, a diplomat told AFP.
An initial version of the text had only called for Ankara to return to diplomacy for security reasons. But the final language was hardened to demand a stop to Ankara's operation following arguments made by Security Council members over the past 24 hours.
With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and dpa
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-forces-under -fire-turkish-artillery-northeast -syria-kurdish/30212824.html
“Everyone is fully aware that we are the United States military. We retain the right of self-defense,” Milley said
If I remember my history, the Turkish-Iranian-Iraqi-Kurdish problem began when the League of Nations voted for a new nation in the area, composed of parts of those three. KURDISTAN.
The US was not a member of the League of Nations.
Rules of Engagement with Muslims -
If infidels are present, Sunni and Shiite Muslims will unite to convert, enslave, or annihilate the infidels.
If infidels are not present, Sunni and Shiite Muslims will turn against each other to annihilate.
The only question that remains - are you a Muslim?
Even this link does not fully cover it all:
1. The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group with history going back into old testament times.
2. Their lands were always held by strong empires, but most often they were allowed peaceful control of their own area as long as they presented no rebellion against the rulers they had to live under. That was particularly true under the Ottomans. It was sometimes true and sometimes not so true under rulers in Persia and Mesopotamia.
3. When the British defeated and broke up the Ottoman Empire, and parceled out countries to Arab leaders, and while the Turks were constructing their nation-state within the Anatolian remnant of the Ottoman Empire, yes the Kurds petitioned for their political control over their lands, which the British had promised they would do - then broke their promise.
4. So at the end of it all, everyone BUT the Kurds were given the “right to self determination”, leaving some Kurds under the Turks, some under the Arabs given control of Syria, some under the King of Iraq installed by the British and some under the Iranians.
5. Unlike under the Ottomans, in each of those cases noted in 4. above, the new nation states each of them and all of them wanted to suppress the Kurds. In Iraq, Syria and Turkey the rulers created forced migrations of Arabs, Syrians and Turks into predominately Kurdish areas to reduce the Kurdish majorities anywhere.
6. But in Iraq the governments were least successful in extinguishing the Kurds as an identity, and they frequently rebelled. And in Turkey the numbers of Kurds in the east was large enough that Turkey would have had to commit mass genocide on a scale larger than they did with the Greeks and Armenians tin order to extinguish them, so they just sought to control them polictically; meanwhile Kurish population in Turkey has grown to 12 million (the largest Kurish population - larger than the autonomous Kurdish province in Iraq.
7. So what is WRONG with Kurdish nationalism? The main thing wrong about it is that it was wrong that it was not recognized before.
Erdogan is afraid to allow an autonomous Kurish zone in Syria. That will leave the Kurish area of Turkey as one of the last Kurdish areas that is not politically autonomous. And there are 12 million Kurds in Turkey.
THAT is what this is all about.
Why haven’t we bombed the snot out of the Turkish artillery unit that shelled our guys?
This was done on purpose.
We need to respond in kind ten-fold and on purpose.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.