03 January 2016
By Pepe Escobar
Telesurtv
Why Turkey Stabbed Russia in the Back
Who are the Turkmen? Here we need to plunge back into ancient Silk Road history. There are roughly 200,000 Turkmen living in northern Syria. They are descendants of Turkmen tribals who moved into Anatolia in the 11th century.
Turkmen villages also sprout north of Idlib province, west of Aleppo, as well as north of Latakia province, west of Idlib. And it’s here where we find a rarely discussed bunch: a gaggle of Turkmen militias.
The myth of innocent Turkmen civilians being slaughtered by the “Assad regime” is, well, a myth. In Washington these militias are considered “moderate rebels” – as much as they have merged with all sorts of jihadi or jihadi-gobbled outfits, from the ever pliable construct Free Syrian Army to Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a. al-Qaida in Syria (which Vienna finally branded a terrorist group).
The bottom line is that Turkey and Russia simply cannot be part of the same coalition fighting the Islamic State group because their objectives are diametrically opposed.
Predictably, Turkish media hails all these Turkmen as “freedom fighters,” a la Ronald Reagan in the 1980s jihad Afghan. Turkish media spins the whole of their territory is controlled by an “innocent” Turkmen opposition, and not the Islamic State group. Not the Islamic State group, yes, but mostly al-Nusra, which is virtually the same thing.
For Russia, there’s no distinction, especially because a gaggle of Chechens, Uzbeks and Uyghurs (Chinese intel is on it) have sought harbor among these “moderates.” For Russia what matters is to smash any possibility of a future 900 km-long Jihad Highway between Aleppo and Grozny.
And that explains the Russian bombing of northern Latakia province. Ankara, predictably, went ballistic. The Foreign Ministry had even threatened Russia only a few days ago; the “Russian side’s actions were not a fight against terror, but they bombed civilian Turkmen villages and this could lead to serious consequences.”
Ankara directly supports Turkmen militias with humanitarian aid but what really counts are weapons; truck deliveries controlled by the MIT – Turkish intelligence.
This all fits into the ruling AKP party mythology of defending even pre-Ottoman populations; after all they always provided “good services” to Islam. Syrian Turkmen are as pious as the AKP leadership in Ankara.
The plot thickens
For Russia, the area known as Turkmen Mountain, or heights – which Turks call Bayirbucak – north of Latakia province, is a major target. Because that’s where we find the Weapon Highway – through which Ankara, side by side with the CIA, weaponizes these militias.
For Russia, any possibility of militias allied with Salafis and Salafi-jihadis trying to make a push to conquer overwhelmingly Alawite Latakia province is a red line because this would threaten Russia’s airbase at Khmeimim and eventually even the port of Tartus.
So essentially we have CIA weaponizing – those famous TOW anti-tank missiles – using a smuggling route through Turkmen territory which happens to be an al-Qaeda in Syria-run Ankara power base. This is prime territory for U.S., Turkey and Saudi Arabia to undermine Damascus, and most of all prime proxy war territory: NATO (U.S.-Turkey) against Russia.
The CIA spins the TOWs go to 45 “vetted” – thus “moderate rebel” – outfits. Nonsense; the weapons have been seized by the more experienced jihadis of al-Qaida in Syria, as well as the nebulae known as the Army of Conquest, supported by Saudi Arabia.
So to smash Jabhat al-Nusra and the Army of Conquest for good, Russia started to bomb the Turkmen smugglers, which are hardly “moderates;” they are infiltrated all over by Turkish Islamo-fascists – such as the ones who machine-gunned Russian pilot Lt. Col Oleg Pershin as he was parachuting, a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions.
The stakes for Russia couldn’t be heavier because by using Turkmen tribals, Turkey is already planted deep inside northern Syria.
So expect Russia to substantially increase bombing of Turkmen areas – way beyond just a reprisal for the killing of the Russian pilot.
http://horizonweekly.ca
