Complications at the Turkish Border....Syria warns Ankara and Ryadh

news.yahoo.com...

The battle for Aleppo is about to get very serious.....
Nearly surrounded, and taking a daily pounding from the Russian ans Syrian airforces...The civilians are fleeing in droves and the rebels have just one supply route left.....
The Assad forces bolstered by Russian jets and other weapons, and also helped by Shiite militias....are nearly ready to put the city under siege.

Both Ankara and Ryadh received a dire warning from Syria should they send in troops they'll be coming home in boxes.....
This in reaction to Russian accusations of Turkey and Saudi announcements to the effect theyd send ground forces in if the coalition wanted to go that way.....
This is getting close to spiralling out of anyones control IMHO.....

Meanwhile the escapees from Aleppo are piling up in tens of thousands at the Turkish border in their haste to avoid the coming battle...
Surely there will be some trouble holding all those freaked out people back....the weather is cold as well....

We are at a nexus point in this conflict....
From here on out the chances of things spilling over in any direction are excellent.....

The Kurds are now talking autonomy referendum.....
All parties seem to recognize that its time to move fast and hard to achieve their agendas...

I am not at all sure we will be staying on the periphery much longer....proxies can only do so much.....
At any rate I think this will be the telling battle of the whole war.....

Unless the rebels get some form of AAA protection Assad and Putin along with Hesbollah and the Shiite Militias will have their way eventually....perhaps much sooner than expected too.....
Heres the article:
news.yahoo.com...

a reply to: bandersnatch

The more effective Russian air support combining with Syrian ground forces becomes, the more threatened the insurgents are. Supply routes are key. Aleppo is along the road to and from Turkey in the north and has been hotly contested since the insurgency began. Insurgents need external support to continue operations, all roads to Turkey in the North and the insurgency in the rest of Syria flow through Aleppo.

a reply to: bandersnatch

Sorry about my ignorance, Aleppo is just but one of the many cities in Syria. What is its significance? Is it the only rebel held city? A stronghold?

a reply to: asen_y2k
Aleppo is Syrias biggest city...pop. 2 million before the war....
It is held by more than one faction....
The free Syrian Army, Al Nusra, and also the regime forces control parts.....
This is the real nitty gritty....
If Assad cannot take Aleppo....
He will be considerably weakened at negotiations....(If he does achieve control...I think it spells the beginning of the end for the rebels....)
They are hard pressed by the air war against them....
The combinations of Hezbollah, and the Mehdi Army of Iraq and Regime forces, on the offensive and supported by Russians and Iranian Guards....is pressuring the moderates on all fronts....
Meanwhile the Daesh forces are receiving a lot less Russian bombs than the rebels right now....
Putin and Assad are going for broke here, and the balance of the war is swinging their way...
Unless a miracle happens...AAA canopy opens above Aleppo....its curtains for the Syrian Revolution....
Thus the time is right for desperate moves on the parts of the background and foreground players...whoever they may be...
ALL the MARBLES are in the pot.....

a reply to: bandersnatch

Surely unless you want to bring more bloodshed to our streets that's exactly where we should be right on the side lines. The only time we should be there is were we offering help to the wounded, nothing else and certainly not helping Saudi in any way whatsoever.

We should never have got invoked in declaring and marching and arming rebels in countries like Iraq, Libya and Syria in the first place!!! Not one of those countries declared any form of threat towards the UK so our troops and money has been utilised by today's money and asset stripping war lords. That shouldn't be who we are but its what we know many of our politicians are aids to.

The Sunni/Wahabbi/Saudi wanted a Sunni/Shia conflict and got it. Should I be empathetic to the Sunni that have let the Wahabbi kill Kurds/Shia/Christians/Yazidis for years without stoping the Wahabbis?

Saudi Arabia is like Nazi Germany during the 2nd world war and in insane duality conflicts people associated with genocide sometimes find themselves on the other side of genocide.

Not all Germans was Nazi but that do not clean up that they did nothing to prevent the Nazis insane plans. Not all Sunni are Wahabbi but that do not clean up that they did nothing to prevent the Wahabbi(Saudi Arabian/Turkish) insane plans.

The Sunni majority was dualitic enough to not care about the plight of those that was not them, for material gains. Why should I care about their plight when they do not care about others plight and only push their own groups wishes?

And now Turkey is not letting the Sunni pass thru their borders to be safe so that they can create a reason for going into Syria and push Russia/Syria to the negotiation table. From Russia/Shia/Christian/Kurd/Yazidi point of view the more Sunni that disappear the better for a peaceful non Sunni/Wahabbi secular state instead of Sunni/Wahabbi influenced by Saudi Arabia.

I don't take sides because there is no winning side in this kind of war.....I merely state the situation as it is laid out....
The Kurds have drawn my admiration from time to time...
But I have no horse in the race....
As far as worrying whose gonna suffer at the hands of a clear winner .....well....its pretty plain that it will be EVERYONE ELSE....
All sides have their skeletons hidden away.....(some not so hidden...)

I don't care for sects - I know it counts there just like ethnic stuff did in Yugoslavia - but Assad is neat piece of horror just like his dad was. A client state of the Soviets and now Russia - with the Tartus port being the only warm Russian seaport out.
Nothing redeems the torture of tens of thousands and bombing their own people... which is well-documented.
That Saudis are bad in another way does not help the situation. BTW has anyone on this board been to either of these countries?

In my opinion:

Any time you have a conflict that is primarily sectarian in nature which, ultimately, this conflict is even though it's also about who rules Syria, then the big players backing one side or the other are almost necessarily using things like "defeating evil" (in this case ISIS) as a casus belli. Russia never got into Syria to defeat ISIS (though that may be a byproduct of their involvement, certainly, and I'm not saying they have any sympathy or affinity for them by any means.) Just as NATO - and when I say NATO, I really mean several disparate and in some ways actually contradictory interests i.e. Turkey, NATO at large, the U.S. etc. - isn't there primarily to defeat ISIS (though, again, that is a convenient byproduct and each party on the side of "the West" desires their defeat a little more or less fervently than the others.)

Russia wants to secure the central government's power so as to secure its own influence in the country. The West wants to reverse that influence. A gross oversimplification, sure. But imho, that's what it comes down to. The Sunni-Shia-Kurd conflict, and the ISIS vs other interests of various stripes conflict, are just convenient, already built in reasons to argue for being involved in the first place.

Opinion only. Always willing to be wrong.

Peace.

The reasoning holds as far as you go......bbbut....
The Kurds will have their own turf or they'll all die trying....that's pretty clear. They have a significant overlap between Turkey, Iraq,Iran, And Syria....
At some point (and because of the fight with daesh,)they will have consolidated enough territory to declare independance....And they will do so......
Turkey is fuming over Kurdish success against Daesh because of the swath of territory the Kurds have established.
believe me Turkey will invade to stop a Kurdish state....
Saudi wants to be the big dog in the middle east....as does Iran, Turkey, and Egypt.
Israel is a separate issue ...and have their own agenda as well....
The mix is particularly volatile and a recipe for conflict.
No matter who establishes control....opposition will be ongoing.....
The ME is like the CERN collision chamber....disseparate particles travelling at the speed of light are hurtled against each other till something smashes and we analyze the sparks....
The particles(countries) are destroyed in the process however......