Turkish forces are seen near Mount Barsaya, northeast of Afrin, Syria January 23, 2018. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
The Turkish military has falsely claimed that ISIS is present in the Afrin in its statement on January 23. Accordign to the statement, forces involved in Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch contact ISIS [Daesh] in the area.
The country’s state-run news agency Anadolu (source):
At least 260 PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG and Daesh terrorists have been neutralized since the beginning of Operation Olive Branch in Syria, Turkish General Staff said Tuesday.
In a statement, the military said Turkey carried out this operation under international law and Article 51 of the UN Charter and respecting Syrian territorial integrity.
It added the operation targets terrorists and their shelters, positions, arms and equipment. Precautions were being taken to prevent civilians and innocents from being harmed in the operation.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces [YPG/PYD – core of the force] also noted this fact publicly on January 24.
“The whole world knows Daesh (Islamic State) is not present in Afrin,” Redur Xelil, a senior SDF official, told Reuters.
He added that the Turkish military exaggerated the YPG casualties. However, Xelil declined to say the “real” number. He continued with a claim that YPG forces killed tens of Turkish fighters and allied Free Syrian Army fighters.
Considering what happened to the east of the euphrates river, the claim may have some truths
The region hasn’t had ISIS in it as this region was largely untouched by the International invasion which started in 2010-11. ISIS was spawned out of Iraqi Sunni-Baathist troops.
“The whole world knows Daesh (Islamic State) is not present in Afrin,” well I would say the whole world knows that you are the next Daesh of the US pure proxies,
yes now they going to present themselves as saviors of the world and heroic. They had good teachers from their allies, in this game they sound like americans and their false flags operations. Third rate holyshit scenarios.
I guess it’s time to treat all Turkish news releases as propaganda and BS. But will the home crowd believe it ?
W R O N G ?
Solomon: I gather you hate the Kurds because of the Armenian genocide? Why do you not also hate the Turks?
i dont like both. therefore i enjoy this situation., each bullett goes in good place. :))
They arrest protesters and journalists in Otto-Turkland of Orcs, they have 2 types of news there Pro-Government and “you better be Pro-Government!” ,else we will kill you.
Also reports of people detained for their comments on social media. The Turkish govt has eyes and ears on the net. They may have an arrest warrant out for Dutchnational, if he where to ever visit the country. :D
They have one for sSlippy , they can’t arrest the dutch, if they did we have said probably worse about Turdogan and we would on his list!
so strange, feels like this part of a long term plan between the US and Turkey and russia just lets it happen
I don’t know about that. It looks like that but then in global games I learned never to conclude before all players are fully committed.
And it’s okay.
Today “ISIS”’is anyone you wish to get rid of. In this case, the pesky Kurds and Syrian “rebels”.
Turkey’s operation in Afrin is highblikely supported by both Russia and Syria.
or is a trap well set and at the same time the convenient idiot to eliminate a threat neither Syrians or Russians want to be part of, eliminating. And Turks are famous changing sides like putas who charge according to the size. Is a very long game this one lets see what happens before we try to figure out whose at which side.
True however, Russia approved Turkey’s operation in Afrin on Jan.18-19. Turkey’s secret services director (Hakan Fidan) visited Moscow for that matter. Syria can’t afford being in direct confrontation with the US either and thus let’s Turkey take care of the cleansing. So far, that’s what all point to.
time will tell
It always does.
On an indirect note… are you Greek by any chance (I see some of your comments written in Greek). If so, your opinion may be – rightfully so – biased. But remember that the Kurds were too chopping Christian Armenian/Greek/Assyrian heads for the British Young Turks Party when they (the oligarchs of the British Empire) collapsed the Ottoman Empire.
They were warned about not having outposts and not to violate Syrian Sovereignty, they lost before they started just a fools errand now for Turkey. This should bleed their Proxies even further , seems they want them eliminated permanently.
The reason there would be any ISIS head-choppers in Afrin is because they’re hiding there as individuals/families without arms and without being organized in units. See? Just harmless refugees. The place is relatively safe, compared to the dangerous, head-chopper infested Idlib. Besides, they can make a comfortable living smuggling arms, oil, humans or whatever until it’s time to head south and chop more heads. Re-join ISIS? Whatever… al Nusra or FSA are also options. It really depends who’s paychecks are clearing that month. Turk FSA is probably the best choice today for a head-chopper trying to feed his little head-choppers.
There as you call it are people who know each other and are organized in military fashion not a refuge camp with anonymous people in it. If you not one of them very hard to hide in plain sight.
In Afrin city itself, of course. While Afrin district has no giant, death-camp type refugee centers, it does have thousands of refugees that come and go over the course of the war.
true
Arguably ISIS could well be present in Afrin as ISIS terrorists have been incorporated into Kurdish formations by the USA after many ISIS terrorists surrendered and changed allegiance in the Deir Ezzor region. :)
Mainly local Kurds and Arabs no ISIS members came this way are you starting to fall for the false claims. There is a small kernel of truth since they came with the Turks in Buses and many local FSA/HTS Terrorists have sleeper cells in them.
Shock! Horror! I find myself agreeing with Woolpuller!
Where is Terra Cotta Woolpuller? And what have you done with him? :-)
Huh. That’s odd. Last time I checked Turkey has been (still is) helping, funding, supporting, aiding, hospitalizing Daesh.
This game of chess that is played at the moment, is being played in the correct manner….. with Turkey (seems they have made a U-turn but who knows) fixing some issues with the PKK, in this way Syria doesn’t have to fight the YPG-U.S. Proxy….. Turkey is allowed to fight the Kurds by Russia & NATO won’t harm them, for they are an ally, so Turkey is the right country to bring the SDF-Proxy to the negotiation table (forgive me if I’m wrong, but with all the disinfo-agents & presstitutes these years, you come to the realization that you never can be sure about a damn thing anyway). If Assad had gone against the YPG it would have meant serious repercussions by some third party (of whom we all know that it likes to test it’s newest laser guided bombs on civillians) and most of all Assad wants to keep Syria for All Syrians including Kurds…. so it’s better to stay a little bit friendly for future talks. Assad got his hands free to clean up the last remnants of ISIS & FSA. Don’t get me wrong I am in no one’s favor but I am very thankful for every warrior that have put his life on the line to fight some low life Satanic-Daesh-Al-Qaeda-Headchopping-Demons, that dared to call themselves muslim, which is an insult to true Muslims. Putin plays his game smart: keep your men in the field and stay on the background. Let the opposition make mistakes….. which they have done overwelmingly. Here in Europe more & more people got to know the truth….. I’ve been following this war since the beginning, and a lot of things got very very clear. This is a very nasty and smelly situation. And if it wasn’t for all the misery that the West brought to the Middle East (kids & women duped the most as always), I even would be glad that I got to know what this Europe I lived in for so many years stands for…… soon I will leave Europe for Asia… I’m done with their lies, a lie has no legs and most of all I hate LIARS. Let us be brothers, there are more urgent things happening on this earth that need our attention (and I don’t mean this Climate-Tax-Change fairy tale) instead of poor people fighting eachother for the wealth and power of a handful elitists, which above all are a bunch of desperate psychopathic suicidal idiots that obviously want to end existence here on this planet. They don’t like it, to see their centuries old power crumbling before their eyes, in the way that they do now….. In that perspective: What a beautiful day & age we live in. Let wisdom and wise decisions prevail…. for all parties involved. Stay sharp……. and to Leaders: Be a righteous Leader first of all….which can be pretty hard at times, I can understand that.
Sure your name is not Merlin , well spoken .
Yea maybe a handful of isis hiding in a cave. But the Russians also made such bullshit claims in the past such as: ISIS in Latakia province. Since 2014 not a single isis fighter has entered the province. So yea we all make mistakes.
Zoom out the map of Afrin and you can see perfectly that the Turkish operation is actually getting their terrorist proxies to encircle the Syrian city of Aleppo. This will not materialize however. If wars were won solely by propaganda, threats, statements, posturing, infinite repeating of declarations and taking pictures with Bana (there little girl – terrorist’s mascot) then yes, Erdog could probably conquer the world. BUT since wars are not actually won in that way… (lol) Turk salafists will end up defeated as is proper. :)
Can’t stand Bana Al Bed daughter of Islamic state Salafis , the one who wrote her text was Abdulkafi Hamdo well known to the White Helmets as he works with FSA/Al Qaeda and still a strong member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So we have on record how the SDF/PKK has absorbed and let free ISIS mercenaries on several occasions, take Raqqa for example, but somehow it is now far fetched to believe that the SDF has promised these prisoners of war freedom if they fight their enemies?
This is war guys…. There are no good sides
sure,,,some sleeper-cells might be there…Erdogan should know.
The Western MSM lies all the time. Why shouldn’t the Turks? Almost everything that comes out of the State Dept. is a bold faced lie….so should the US be the only country allowed to twist and distort the truth to further its foreign policy goals ..?