/mlpol/ - Syria General /sg/ - Druze Martyr Edition

>Twitter

>URGENT: Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Sudan potential contenders for S-400 purchase – official
https://sputniknews.com/world/201801231060996070-syria-iraq-egypt-suden-s400/

>More scenes driving around from Fire Base Raqqa, Syria, with @CENTCOM and @USAIDMarkGreen on Monday. Some main streets cleared and de-mined. Little else passable.
https://twitter.com/DefenseBaron/status/955713588454359040

>@IvanSidorenko1
>#Syria #Idleb #Idlib #Edlib #Edleb
>Brigadier General Muhassan Nafnouf to be head of military Mukhabarat (military intelligence) branch in Idlib He succeeds bridadier general Muhammad Muallem who has been moved to the management branch in Damascus.
>Good luck with the new tasks.

>@leithfadel
>Major General Za’id Saleh has been named the new commander of the 5th Legion. He was previously commander of the Republican Guard’s Division 30, which operated inside Aleppo.

>https://twitter.com/EasternMediafax/status/955565904208842753
>@EasternMediafax
>#BREAKING:
>Footage of #IS fighters today attack the #PKK (#SDF) positions at the Al-Bahra town:

>@EasternMediafax
>#BREAKING:
>15 killed and wounded #SDF fighters at the ongoing wide scaled attack of #IS in Al-Bahra and Kharanij town, also several positions captured from the #SDF positions. Also the "The revenge for the virtuous woman" offensive is still ongoing.

>@EasternMediafax
>#BREAKING:
>Kurdish Source:
>"The YPG faction stopped with sending fighters to the Deir Ezzor front and started with fortifying its positions North Syria against the Turkish forces, highly possible we'll see the SDF retreating from some towns/villages the upcoming days in DZ."

>Turk airstrikes in Iraq
Turkey has carried out airstrikes in northern Iraq against the strongholds of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, whom it says were planning to launch attacks on Turkish soil.
The military said on Tuesday that its warplanes had carried out the raids in the Zap region in northern Iraq a day earlier, destroying hideouts and arms caches belonging to the PKK militants.
The militants were planning an attack on border security posts and bases manned by Turkey, the statement added.
Meanwhile, Turkey’sHurriyetdaily cited Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying that Ankara and Baghdad were in talks for a joint operation against the PKK in Iraq’s Sinjar Province.
“They told us ‘PKK is no different from Daesh, let’s cooperate against this threat,’” he said on his return from his one-day visit to Baghdad on January 21.
The airstrikes in Iraq coincides with Turkey’s fresh operation in northern Syria against US-backed Kurdish militants.

>Yemen
The UN says its envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmedwill step down by the end of his term next month after he repeatedly failed in his attempts to broker a diplomatic solution to the conflict in the Arab state.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric made the announcement Monday, saying the world body’s Secretary General Antonio Guterres seeks to quickly appoint a new mediator.
“In this moment, his thoughts go first to the Yemeni people who are worn out by this conflict and are enduring one of the most devastating humanitarian crises in the world,” said Dujarric.
“The special envoy remains committed to pursue through diplomacy an end to the violence and a political solution that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Yemeni people, until a successor is named,” he added.
Meanwhile, Al Arabiya on Tuesday cited “sources in New York” as saying that the UN had appointed British Martin Griffiths as Cheikh Ahmed’s replacement.
Griffith has served as the former deputy head of the UN Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), in the position of assistant secretary-General, and the deputy to the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator in New York.

Cheikh Ahmed, a Mauritanian diplomat, was appointed to the position in April 2015, a month after Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the Yemeni conflict in March 2015 by launching an all-out military campaign against the Arab world’s most impoverished country in favor of its former Riyadh-friendly government.
The offensive, which has so far killed some 13,600 people, is meant to crush Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, which has been running state affairs in Sana’a in the absence of an effective administration.
Cheikh Ahmed’s multiple attempts at enabling reconciliation between the opposing sides in Yemen have failed amid the Saudi-led coalition’s aerial and ground attacks as well as Riyadh’s support for the militants loyal to the former government operating on the ground against Houthi fighters and allied forces.
The last round of peace talks between Yemen’s conflicting sides collapsed in 2016.
Concomitant with Cheikh Ahmed’s tenure, the UN and leading human rights groups have repeatedly condemned the bloody Saudi-led campaign against Yemen, which has also the strong support of the US and the UK.

>Olive Branch news
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey seeks to avoid any clash with Syrian, Russian or U.S. forces during its operation in northern Syria but will take whatever steps it needs for its security, Turkey’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
The United States and Russia have both urged Turkey to show restraint in its military campaign, Operation Olive Branch, to crush Kurdish YPG control over the Afrin district on its southern border. Syria has condemned the incursion.

PARIS (Reuters) - French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed concern on Tuesday about Turkey’s military offensive in northern Syria and warned the government to show restraint in its operations against Kurdish forces in the region.
“I had the opportunity to tell my Turkish colleague… that this offensive worries us,” Le Drian told reporters.
“While we understand the concerns Turkey has about border security, we cannot but call on Turkey to show the greatest level restraint on this issue.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/23/turkey-preoccupation-syrian-kurds-could-spell-disaster-for-us

>Turkey's preoccupation with Syrian Kurds could spell disaster for US
The west cannot afford to lose Ankara’s role as a countervailing force to a Russian-imposed peace

The US, Britain and France have all strongly criticised the Turkish invasion of northern Syria, but the three countries have so far been unwilling to instruct their Nato partner to pull back.

The low-key stance urging Turkey to minimise casualties probably means Ankara can press ahead with its attempts to drive the Syrian Kurds out of Afrin province in north-west Syria.

The problem for the west is that, as an endgame possibly approaches in Syria, it cannot afford to lose Turkish diplomatic support since Ankara has been the vital countervailing force to a Russian-imposed peace.

The Turkish preoccupation with the Syrian Kurds on its borders could lead to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reaching a deal with Damascus and Moscow.

US military to maintain open-ended presence in Syria, Tillerson says
Read more
That would represent a disaster for the US only a week after the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, committed the Trump administration to a political solution in Syria that involved the ultimate removal of Bashar al-Assad and Iranian-led militias.

The speech – in which the UK Foreign Office had a big hand – was something of a watershed and was under-appreciated in Europe. Previously, Trump’s policy on Syria was simply the destruction of Isis and an aversion to talk of nation-building. But the Tillerson speech has been widely criticised because it was long on aspiration but short on detailing the credible levers the US and the west have to pressure Moscow to abandon Assad.

Western diplomats say they have some stakes in the ground: the threat to withhold EU and US reconstruction funds, the promise to keep 2,000 US troops inside Syria indefinitely and a slightly confused commitment to help the Kurds form a border force inside northern Syria. British ministers also repeatedly warn that a Russian-imposed peace that simply leaves Assad in charge would not only be morally reprehensible but unstable.

But the value of all these levers is immeasurably diminished if they lack the support of Turkey, the long-term supporter of the Syrian opposition in the seven-year civil war.
If Turkey instead sides with Moscow, Russia will be able to press ahead with its political solution for Syria to be launched at the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, an event co-sponsored by Turkey and Iran and due to be held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on 29-30 January.

The west fears Vladimir Putin regards Sochi as an alternative to the UN-led peace talks, and an assertion of Russian authority across the Middle East. It could also be a means of rubber-stamping an agreement that leaves Assad in charge with some minor changes to the Syrian constitution.

In an attempt to retain the primacy of the UN process and achieve a broadly acceptable long-term political outcome, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is to hold two sessions of talks either side of Sochi, the first on 25-26 January.

The Sochi conference has repeatedly been postponed by Moscow, mainly because Turkey has objected to any invitation being extended to the Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). Turkey regards the YPG as inextricably linked to the Kurdisstan Workers’ party inside Turkey.

But the events of the past few days suggest Turkey and Russia may be close to a deal. Turkish military officials travelled to Moscow ahead of the Turkish invasion to extract guarantees that the Russian air force inside Syria would not attack Turkish units. On Monday Moscow then announced that Kurdish representatives would be invited to Sochi, without detailing the precise identity of those delegates.

The outlines of a deal are discernible – in which Turkey backs a Russian peace process and Moscow tacitly accedes to a Turkish drive to weaken the Syrian Kurds on its borders.

The US can argue it tolerated Kurdish territorial expansions across northern Syria, and specifically west of the Euphrates river, only so long as the Kurdish militias inside theSyrian Democratic Forces were needed to defeat Isis, but now that battle has been won the US priority is to stop the freefall in its relations with Turkey. If that means a temporary Turkish foothold in the patchwork that is Syria, so be it.

>Turk airstrikes in Iraq
Turkey has carried out airstrikes in northern Iraq against the strongholds of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, whom it says were planning to launch attacks on Turkish soil.

The military said on Tuesday that its warplanes had carried out the raids in the Zap region in northern Iraq a day earlier, destroying hideouts and arms caches belonging to the PKK militants.

The militants were planning an attack on border security posts and bases manned by Turkey, the statement added.

Meanwhile, Turkey’sHurriyetdaily cited Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying that Ankara and Baghdad were in talks for a joint operation against the PKK in Iraq’s Sinjar Province.

“They told us ‘PKK is no different from Daesh, let’s cooperate against this threat,’” he said on his return from his one-day visit to Baghdad on January 21.

The airstrikes in Iraq coincides with Turkey’s fresh operation in northern Syria against US-backed Kurdish militants.

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