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The militants positioned throughout Idlib are on a full-scale retreat, and have been on the back foot since December 25th, 2019. They’ve lost over 2,000 square kilometers to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) since then.
Despite any evidenced successes by the Syrian Arab Army, Turkey is continuing the wide distribution of claims of its military victories against the “Assad regime.” The scale of these imaginary victories is progressively becoming grander.
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On the morning of February 13th, the Turkish Defense Ministry said that 55 Syrian troops were “neutralized”, and this was still a part of the response to the deaths of the 5 Turkish troops as a result of SAA shelling. Anadolu Agency claimed that Turkish forces had done the “neutralizing” but the Defense Ministry says that its sources had said that 55 Syrian troops had been “neutralized,” essentially, once more, distributing the “achievements” of militants.
These are the “moderate rebels” that Turkey supports, and claims are fighting for their rights against the “Assad regime,” militants with ISIS insignias on their shoulders:
Furthermore, Turkish media, and the government itself refuses to acknowledge that there are at least some radicals present in Idlib, even in maps released by them, it describes groups such as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) as “opposition and anti-Regime armed groups.”
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According to the Turkish claims, more than 200 Syrian soldiers have been killed in Turkey’s response and actions of Idlib “opposition and anti-regime armed groups”, in addition to a large amount of military hardware being destroyed.
Meanwhile, Ankara entirely refuses to admit that the area is infested by terrorists, saying that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are effectively simply attacking civilians.
The Turkish Armed Forces – key to peace in our region – stand by our brothers in Idlib with no links to terror groups, who suffer under the oppression of the Assad regime and struggle to survive in harsh winter conditions. The Turkish nation will always support the oppressed. pic.twitter.com/gSaLPs8My6
— T.C. Millî Savunma Bakanlığı (@tcsavunma) February 12, 2020
This all amounts to propaganda, since Turkey’s claims are supported by no visual evidence of any sort. There’s no proof of any military victories, and as of now they’re all in the area of propaganda.
Just recently, the Turkish Defense Ministry claimed that the Syrian Army lost al-Nayrab because of an attack by militants, assisted by the Turkish army. This was, once again, covered as a victory over Twitter, but then videos were released by pro-Syrian sources that proved nothing of the sort had happened. The town remained in the hands of the Syrian Army.
A plethora of footage was released showing what the militants lost in their attacks on al-Nayrab and their failure was proven.
According to pro-Turkish media outlets, one of the reasons of this imaginary Syrian Army withdrawal from al-Nayrab was the downing of a Syrian Mil Mi-17 helicopter, by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet. This was also used to provide “evidence” that Turkish fighter jets have the freedom of flying in Syrian airspace, and it’s not simply the Russian air force carrying out strikes on militants.
This was entirely debunked when videos surfaced showing that the helicopter was actually downed by way of a MANPAD.
All the while, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is making grand promises of a “decisive response” and that SAA positions would be attacked all throughout Syria, and not only in Idlib if any more Turkish soldiers are harmed. Meanwhile, Erdogan admitted that 14 Turkish personnel were killed and 45 were injured in Idlib, and everything else is simply a claim which is accompanied by no evidence.
Turkey cannot simply turn its back on approximately 10 years of policy against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and unofficial support for militants. So, it needs to show that it is the more powerful, influential and “winning” side in situation.
At the same time, Ankara simply needs to save face, as it can do very little to influence the situation in Idlib. It is unlikely that Turkey can involve itself in a full-scale intervention against the Syrian Army in Idlib and wider Syria, since it would be too expensive and destroy the already weakened Turkish economy, despite propaganda regarding the financial conditions also going on with full force in Turkish media. Turkish society itself would find it hard to accept the casualties, there’s soldiers dying even without the war having begun.
Russia, however, appears to be providing a “helping hand” to help the Erdogan government to save the face. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that the situation in Idlib had escalated past the limit. As a result of militant attacks, 150 civilians were killed, 300 were injured. On top of that, she claimed that the Syrian army reportedly suffered devastating casualties: over 400 soldiers were killed and more than 900 were wounded during the last month.
“We see the reasons for the current degradation in Turkey’s chronic failure to fulfill its obligations under the Sochi memorandum of September 17, 2018,” Zakharova said.
The remarks regarding the supposed Syrian Army casuatlies go within the framework of Turkey’s claims on the situation. Despite the lack of evidence to confirm such casualties, this Russian position gives Anakra the chance to “redeem” itself, to “save face” and return to compliance with the Sochi memorandum, or rather begin complying with it whatsoever.
A Turkish delegation is to also visit Moscow in the coming days, in order to coordinate how to best approach the Idlib situation, which is likely that Russia would provide Ankara with some other ways of saving face, and allowing the SAA and the Russian forces supporting it to carry out what they would do regardless.
Erdogan vowed to wage a war on Syria if Damascus does not withdraw its forces from the recently liberated areas. However, February 2020 will end in about two weeks and Turkey is unlikely to begin any war, or have any actual, and not imaginary successes in Idlib. It is also unlikely that the SAA will advance on Idlib city itself, but it will rather secure the M5 highway, and clear out the nearby areas, before sieging the city and fighting for it. So, the recent gains will be consoliated on the diplomatic level by another ‘ceasefire’ and the Erdogan government will be able to claim that the terrified ‘regime forces’ appeared to be ‘too scared of Turkish might’ and thus did not advance on Idlib city. The region of Greater Idlib will enter another phase of ‘de-escalation’.
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Idlib capital must be retake!…the terrorist cancer must be fought or it will end up growing….Turkey invaded Afrin and Northeast Syria…therefore Erdogan has already saved his face!
You don’t save face by chewing it off
Good point, if you look at ErDOGan’s latest public ramblings on the Zionist mouthpiece TRT, you can see the stupid coward terrorist supporting bastard is in panic mode and does not know what to do as the headchoppers are being slammed by the SAA and its allies. There is no way the Turkeys can hang on to any part of Syria.
well southfront… there is ONE WORD you are missing in your article……the most imporatnt word in the current Situation in Idlib with regards to TURKEY….
NATO
Turkey is a NATO MEMBER.
secondly…. Turkey is Moslem brotherhood………
how far can the prick erdogan bend????in regards to Idlib ….. after a decade of AKP ruke in Turkey…Turkey has become a Islamist Nation….from the bartender to the barber, from the policeman to the soldier…anybody opposing this trend was and is beiing put in jail. again from the bartender to the barber and from the policeman to the soldier…….in other words…through the decade Long Islamist Propaganda in Turkey , erdogan cannot simply quit in Idlib or call an end to his bs security Zone in North syria……and dont Forget AFRIN.Afrin has become practically a turkish piece of land.The turks changed the demographics of afrin for good.
so how far can he bend??? The danger that I Always saw in the syrian conflict, was the direct Involvement of Nato as a whole. I can imagine very well, that the Zionist british US pricks are currently offering erdogan heaven and earth for a direct confrontation between SAA and TAF and their Nato commitment……………………………
and we all should NEVER UNDERESTIMATE the satanic power and wickedness of them Zionist british US pricks….…..
and again i must write it……all the bs and dangers we are currently, in regards to TURKEY, discussing have one begiinning
PUTIN:
i still believe he is a treacherous Zionist pig…….that what we all see currently developed was planned long ago by british zionists…….and the INVASION and OCCUPATION of syrian soil by TURKEY was and is an essential part of their satanic Evil plan………
hopefully iam wrong…..and erdogan will bend enough, and Putin has enough leverage over him, Turkey will retreat from Idlib, from afrin, from North east syria……..
and i will carefully check out the skies on the coming Christmas for santa clause and his fucking rain dears
sorry but you are wrong Putins plan was to break turkey away from NATO and we see this works at some level now erDog tries to get US-support back, but for what for al-qaida?
So for me Putins plan works very fine and for the “Zionist lalala..” stop your paranoia, if Putin would help really the zionists, he would never try to defend Syria from Israel attacks.. don’t go “turkish”, stay mindly sane ;)
The SAA has the momentum and must liberate all of Idlib, the Turkeys simply can not sustain their proxy terrorism now as the headchopper pool has shrunk and the Turkeys are now using their own cannon fodder.
The turkey wont be spared this time..
The Turkey needs to be slow cooked this time.
Have you ever tried deep fried turkey?
Its truly fantastic, jokes aside :)))
No, I am waiting from my order from Idlib via uber moron Erdogan eats :)
Good one, i fell out the excavator seat laughing. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b064976f25d74826e17e16ceb87055385ebb3f8d69a7ec4b4cd4271b843b648.jpg
Wot? No seat belt, Mike? That must be Self Reported as a Near Miss Incident :)
If anyone uses syria.liveuamap.com and finds the constant Turkish propaganda grating I wrote a simple Chrome extension for shits and giggles. It changes most of the map posts from outright lies to hilarious truths but leaves comments untouched.
Step 1: Download https://mega.nz/#!jroEACzL!iOoYeGCyqjXgGwi8yArQAEttgIlNmn9wHA41cTh5uPU
Step 2: Extract files wherever you want
Step 3: Open extensions menu by typing “chrome://extensions” in the address bar
Step 4: Turn on “Developer Mode” and click “Load Unpacked”
Step 5: Navigate to the folder you extracted and click “Select folder”
Step 6: Smile smugly as propaganda becomes truth.
I forgot the most obvious filter so I may as well describe how to customise it: The secret sauce is the filter(markup) function in the “content.js” file, to add a new filter simply open content.js in your favourite text editor and add a new markup=replaceAll line. The replaceAll function takes three inputs: 1) text to filter (always markup) 2) an array of strings to replace (eg. [“string1″,”string2”]) 3) text you want to replace with (eg. “new string”).
To insert the missing filter you would paste the following line at the start of the replaceAll function: markup=replaceAll(markup, [“Assad regime”,”regime”], “Syrian Government”)
If you want to replace phrases or words that contain other words then place the longer version before the shorter for example: markup=replaceAll(markup, [“Israeli”], “Zionist”) markup=replaceAll(markup, [“Israel”], “Occupied Palestine”)
If you want to replace with something that you want to filter out in a different context do the removal first, for example we remove all mention of “regime” first with: markup=replaceAll(markup, [“Assad regime”,“regime”], “Syrian Government”) Then we insert our phrase that contains “regime”: markup=replaceAll(markup, [“Turkish”,”TSK”], “Erdogan regime“)
of course ..
turkey = REAL ISIS !!!
(500 years of devsirme childabduction)
Turkey is prepared to to everything fruitless to defend it’s proxies,it’s responses will be limited to few clashes not full scale conflict.
I am even doubtful about that as this terror war is causing a lot of angst at home as the cannon fodder bodies come home. In the era of smart phones, unless the moron Erdogan shutdown the internet the truth will come out. The Turkeys have suffered very serious casualties and are overextended from Libya to Syria. The SAA and its allies are very confident now as they know the worst is over and they can mop up Idlib. To be honest, the Russian airforce has done a very effective job and the Turkeys are shit scared of the SU-35 as they blast the ageing F-16 and F-4E out of the skies at will. Turkey is a small, fragmented, imploding bankrupt third world shithole and that point should never be lost on anyone. It is no match for Russia which has the most advanced military technology and 6,000 nukes and can really radiate the Turkeys anyone.
Kill Erdogan his the terrorists leader.
Erdogan, piece of dog crap that he is (no insults to dog crap intended), is well known for saying things that aren’t true, using hyperbole and probably seeing the world as he wants it to see, rather then as it actually is. At one time he was probably a decent leader, as most Turks saw their standard of living rise in his first terms of office. But there’s a reason why the US has adopted term limits for its presidents, and other countries should do well to follow them in that regard. Politicians who remain in power for too long always become more authoritarian, they become more and more convinced of being right, less able to listen to other opinions, lose those people that made their first terms in office successful and replace them with yes men. As they stay on in office their later terms become less and less successful, their mistakes increase, their rule becomes ever more disastrous for the country and eventually they have to leave the office in disgrace. Handing over the reigns of power is never easy, that is why term limits are essential so any successor gets a chance to take over, and not be sidelined or get rid off by a leader who stays too long.
Two Term US presidents or not, the vast majority of them have been carpet baggers at best and war criminals at worst.
Now imagine how much worse things would have been if they could have run for a third or fourth time. I think we, and they too, are better off that they couldn’t have done so. You gotta quit while you are still ahead and not overstay your welcome.
There is merit to that I agree.
There have been very few leaders who have put their people before themselves.
Those that do are like a bright star. In my opinion, President Putin is one of the stars.
my wife says he is a crazy dwarf, i think he is maybe the best realpolitcian as global player of the last 50 years.. i very appreciate what and how he do it, the last months was hard to trust him, but you see his fruits coming always
i was hating him before the syrian war as autocrat, now he is my “savior”, the only big player securing the world from the islamic threat and playing as “man” the multilayer dirty worldpolitic.
I don’t start to like autocrats at all! But i change my mind about him,
he isn’t for me more an autocrat, sorry he is the only one, the … savior
wtf, i should hate him for this sh.t ;)
Your open mind has released you from the chains of servitude to the Western narrative. Perhaps your wife should endeavour to free her mind as well. Looking at the reality of perpetual wars and those who gain is a good start.
It takes courage to do what you have done when all about you are mindless followers of a cult.
I’m guessing that there’s a lot of non public pressure being placed on the Turks by Jews and NATO Zionists to slow down or stop the Idlib advance to keep the Jew’s Yinon plan perpetual conflict Syrian war going. To delay the formation of a regional coalition to clear the baby rapers out of the occupied territories.
The Turks have no legitimate justification to be in Syria beyound Adana agreement type operations once the US is gone. And US support for the Zionist Kurd traitors is removed. The best way to achieve this is to complete the expulsion of the NATO Zionists from Iraq.
erdogan made a crucial mistake when he made the refugee-deal with the european union – with no such deal he could just have transshipped the jihadist towards the greek coast and allowed them to slip across the turkey greece border. now he’s trying to keep them in idlib, preventing them from crossing the turkey border. he managed to clear out a few for libya but that still leaves 1000s of unfriendly jihadists right on his border and rest assured that russia won’t give him much room in idlib – silly sod!
It’s all fun and games until missiles are falling on Ankara. Then watch the diplomats come out to play.
turkey hat to get shattered 4 peace !!