File photo. Source: aa.com.tr
After yesterday’s unsuccessfull push to the ISIS-held town of Al-Bab in the Syrian province of Aleppo, the Turkish leadership reportedly decided to expand military presence in the war-torn country.
AlMasdarNews reports:
Up to 300 elite Turkish commandos will enter Syria to fight ISIS terrorists and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) whilst supporting the Free Syrian Army and Islamist militants, according to Anadolu News.
The commandos will come from the 11th Command Brigade.
A source told Anadolu News that the 11th Command Brigade have already been airlifed to Syria from the Cardak Military Airport in Western Turkey.
Turkish forces crossed into Syria on August 24 under the pretext of expelling ISIS from the border region but have cleared some 1,800 square kilometers (694 square miles) from not only ISIS, but also the Kurdish-led SDF.
Anadolu News provides own explanation of reasons of the Turkish military operation in Syria:
Operation Euphrates Shield, launched in late August by Turkey, aims at improving security, supporting coalition forces and eliminating the terror threat along Turkey’s border using Free Syrian Army fighters backed by Turkish armor, artillery, and jets.
Since the start of the Turkish military campaign, so-called “opposition fighters” have shown themselves as a low efficiency force that is hardly able to make significant gains against Kurdish YPG forces or ISIS without direct support of the Turkish Armed Forces. This is why Turkey is pushed to deploy more and more military equipment and troops to support its military operation in the country.
Another 300 war criminals.
Now it all makes sense why those jihadis stuck in southern Aleppo wanna go to Northern Aleppo governorate, they wanna join the turks! Hell no, send em to Idlib!
Hope the Turkish commandos are good at dodging the OFAB-250/270s raining down on them from Su-25s. That bomb typically has a 15m or so radius of guaranteed lethal overpressure with a contact fuse, and any Turkish commando within a 100m strike point radius stands a good chance of being shredded by ragged square chunks of its roll-forged iron casing. The Su’s usually drop them in pairs, so I recommend fleeing forward or backward for the highest chance of survival (or leaving a recognizable corpse to ship home). Don’t run from side to side screaming for your momma – that won’t work and your commando buddies will make fun of you if you live.
Putin’s own fault for propping up the Islamist-Dictator of NATO/Turkey. This will hunt Putin for the rest of his life.
I think it’s a little farcical that they think sending the other half of the Commando battalion they’ve already got their is going to make a difference. These aren’t really special forces operators. They are just vaguely elite raiding infantry, like US Army Rangers.