By Walid Shoebat
On February 4th we reported that Turkey is preparing for a military incursion into Syria. We have warned as far back as October 2014, that Turkey will sooner or later find the excuse for a military incursion into Syria.
Was that speculation? Not anymore. The news now confirms, Turkey’s foreign minister said that his country and Saudi Arabia are planning to launch ground operations in Syria.
In the wake of Saudi Arabia’s sending in ground troops on Thursday stationed in Turkey, the Russian prime minister said the move could spark a new world war. “A ground operation draws everyone taking part in it into a war,” he told the newspaper Handelsblatt. “The Americans and our Arab partners must consider whether or not they want a permanent war” he added.
Turkey is in fact already shelling into Syria. In two messages sent Sunday to the UN secretary general and the president of the UN Security Council, Damascus also denounced recent statements made by the Turkish prime minister justifying the shelling of Kurdish armed group YPG in Syria.
The Turkish military also shelled Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) forces at the Menagh air base near Azez in northern Syria as well as Syrian regime forces on Saturday, continuing to hit PYD targets on Sunday while demanding that the PYD withdraw from positions near the border even though the PYD warned on Sunday that they would resist any Turkish intervention.
US Department of State Spokesman John Kirby urged Turkey on Saturday to halt military strikes into Syria.
“We have also seen reports of artillery fire from the Turkish side of the border and urged Turkey to cease such fires,” stated Kirby.
In other words, the Turkish-Syrian war has already begun.
Syria’s foreign minister warned on Saturday that Saudi or other foreign troops entering his country would “return home in wooden coffins”.
Riyadh said on Saturday it had deployed warplanes to Turkey’s Incirlik airbase in order to “intensify” its operations against the Islamic State group in Syria. Turkey said that they will be meeting soon with Saudi Arabia to “finalize details” of ground operations.
Turkey claims that the troops will be combating against ISIS, Turkish media reported Saturday. Mevlut Cavusoglu, was quoted in the Yeni Safak newspaper Saturday as saying that “Turkey and Saudi Arabia may launch an operation from the land”. Turkey, a nation which did nothing to fight ISIS is now interfering because Syria with the aid of Russia had the Aleppo gains and is defeating ISIS and Turkey wants to claim the victory.
Iran is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has sent weapons, money and military advisers to Syria to help bolster his forces.
The region is about ignite. First of all, the entire airspace is defended with Russian S-400 missiles, which can hit Saudi and Turkish aircraft from inside Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
This will also rise in tensions and intensify the situation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, especially following the kingdom’s execution of a Shiite cleric and attacks on Saudi diplomatic posts in the Islamic Republic. The exection of the cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, inflamed a 1,400-year-old conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
In 2014 we analyzed:
“What we should ask is this: why would Turkey allow the pawn it created and aided to be sacrificed in the end? … The plan is obvious, it is to oust Bashar Al-Assad which has quite the implications. Firstly the Turkish-Russian differences over Syria could easily deepen, with adverse consequences for both parties, in coming months or years. Despite vigorous efforts by Russian and Turkish policy makers, differences over Syria threaten to disrupt what has been a harmonious relationship. Leaders in Ankara are calling for President Bashar al-Assad’s immediate departure, while Moscow continues to support his regime if not al-Assad personally. In the future, we will begin to see the rift between Russia and Turkey.”
Mind you this was way before Russia’s involvement. Anyone questions today that between Turkey and Russia there is an obvious “rift”? Even in August 2014 we predicted: “Turkey by design intends to usher itself as a savior by creating, aiding and abetting its pawn, ISIS, to make havoc than intervene to end of the crisis in order to bolster its image as the ideal Islamic state to both Muslims and the West.”
Anyone now doubts? To learn about how we perceive the outcome from here forward when Turkey invades Syria read our analysis: