anoop_mig25
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more so...........
Is not about to ditch but has allready ditchedThis is getting complicated.
The US is about to ditch its allies, the Kurds. This is a no-brainer. The US has ditched anyone and everyone whose usefulness is diminished.
Anyway, the Kurds are fighitng back.
Syria à la Carte: Turkish Invasion Highlights Rapidly Shifting Alliances
But first, a bit of background. For years, a tense alliance of convenience had existed in Hasakah between troops loyal to Syrian ruler Bashar Assad and Kurds with close ties to the PKK, the Kurdish militant group in Turkey. The Kurds have continually founded new PKK offshoots in the region, an alphabet soup of groups including most importantly the YPG (which stands for People's Protection Units in Syria) and, more recently, the SDF, or Syrian Democratic Forces. All the groups share personnel, funding and leadership and the image of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan can be seen everywhere. The YPG did not participate in the uprising against Assad and in exchange, the group was allowed to expand its control in Kurdish areas with Assad's unspoken acquiescence. There have been occasional skirmishes between the YPG and Assad troops, but the conflicts have always been rapidly resolved.
Because it is running out of troops, however,
Assad's army in July began recruiting a new militia as part of the "National Defense Force" from Sunni tribes in Hasakah -- fighters from the same clans that were involved in earlier plundering and killing of local Kurds when they rose briefly in 2004. The Kurds haven't forgotten and within days, the situation escalated, with the two sides firing on each other and the Kurds conquering almost the entire provincial capital, likewise named Hasakah. Then on August 18, the Syrian air force bombed Kurdish positions in the region for the first time in five years.
The air strikes didn't have much impact on the local fighting, but they completely altered the international balance of power. Though Turkey has long been fighting against Syrian President Assad, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recognized that the Syrian strikes against the Kurds could be useful. As a leading member of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party formulated it in June: "Ultimately, Assad is a killer and tortures his own population. But he doesn't support Kurdish autonomy. We abhor one another, but in this respect, we are pursuing similar policies."
Assad's attack on the Kurds also facilitated rapprochement between the Turkish and Russian governments on the Syrian question. Ankara and Moscow have long been far apart on Syria. Erdogan has been demanding Assad's deposition since 2011 and finances some rebel groups. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has preferred to prop up the Assad regime in the hopes of a more orderly transition of power. But the ice age between Erdogan and the West, which has only become colder since the recent putsch attempt in Turkey, has once again made Russia a potential ally for the Turks.
In the tactical shifting of alliances in Syria, the Kurds had hoped to be the cleverest player. Now, however, it looks as though they may have risked too much.
To make matters worse for the Kurds, their relations with the US have likewise deteriorated rapidly, despite being Washington's closest ally in the fight against Islamic State. After pushing IS out of its own areas, Kurdish fighters did not, as had been agreed with the US, turn their attentions to the de facto IS capital of Raqqa but opted instead to head in the opposite direction and push IS out of the Arab city of Manbij before heading north to Jarabulus, another predominantly Arab city.
The recent events mark an unfortunate example of history repeating itself -- of the PKK allowing itself to be used by the Syrian regime only to be dropped at the whim of Damascus. For many years beginning in the 1980s, Assad's father and predecessor Hafez Assad allowed the PKK to maintain a presence in the Syrian-occupied Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. But when Turkish tanks appeared on Syria's northern border in 1998, Hafez turned his back on the Kurds and the PKK had to abandon its Bekaa Valley camps. That marked the beginning of Öcalan's odyssey across the world, which ended with his arrest by Turkish special forces in Kenya.
Now, it looks as though the PKK has once again miscalculated. The group had hoped to take advantage of the US and Russian battle against IS to establish a Kurdish state in northern Syria. And Russia had been happy to use the Kurds to pressure the Turks. Now that Moscow has achieved its goal, though, it looks to be abandoning the PKK.
In Show of Stealth, F-22s Tailed Su-24s in Syria: Report
The stealth prowess of the fifth-generation fighter jet made by Lockheed Martin Corp. was apparently in effect during the encounter, as the
U.S. pilots said they came within 2,000 feet of the enemy aircraft without the Syrian pilots realizing they were being tailed, according to the article. “I followed him around for all three of his loops,” one of the pilots told Michaels. “He didn’t appear to have any idea I was there.”
http://www.defensetech.org/2016/08/26/in-show-of-stealth-f-22s-tailed-su-24s-in-syria-report/The F-22s were prepared to engage the Su-24s but determined the latter didn’t appear to be carrying a weapons payload and thus didn’t pose a threat to U.S. and coalition forces on the ground, USA Today reported.
According to one report (I cannot remember which one), it was because Erdogan extended the olive branch to Putin.Is not about to ditch but has allready ditched
I am just wondering What kind of deal might have happened between USA and turkey
I think its Nato base in turkey
Same will be with us if our usfulness is diminished?This is getting complicated.
The US is about to ditch its allies, the Kurds. This is a no-brainer. The US has ditched anyone and everyone whose usefulness is diminished.
Anyway, the Kurds are fighitng back.