MARKETWATCH
"Top Democrats walk out of White House meeting on Syria following ‘meltdown’ by Trump"
By Associated Press
Published: Oct 16, 2019 6:11 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Washing his hands of Syria, President Donald Trump declared Wednesday the U.S. has no stake in defending the Kurdish fighters who died by the thousands as America’s partners against IS extremists.
Hours later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats walked out of a meeting at the White House, accusing him of having a “meltdown,” calling her a “third-rate politician” and having no plan to deal with a potentially revived Islamic State group.
Condemnation of Trump’s stance on Turkey, Syria and the Kurds was quick and severe during the day, not only from Democrats but from Republicans who have been staunch supporters on virtually all issues.
The House, bitterly divided over the Trump impeachment inquiry, banded together for an overwhelming 354-60 denunciation of the U.S. troop withdrawal.
Many lawmakers expressed worry that it may lead to revival of IS as well as Russian presence and influence in the area — in addition to the slaughter of many Kurds.
At the White House, Trump said the U.S. has no business in the region — and not to worry about the Kurdish fighters.
“They know how to fight,” he said.
“And by the way, they’re no angels.”
After the House condemnation vote, the congressional leaders of both parties went to the White house for a briefing, which grew contentious, with Trump and Pelosi trading jabs.
The Democrats said they walked out when the meeting devolved into an insult-fest.
“What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown,” Pelosi told reporters, saying Trump appeared visibly “shaken up” over the House vote.
“We couldn’t continue in the meeting because he was just not relating to the reality of it,” she said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Trump for not having an adequate plan to deal with IS fighters who have been held by the Kurds.
He said the meeting “was not a dialogue, this was sort of a diatribe, a nasty diatribe not focused on the facts.”
Republicans pushed back, saying it was Pelosi who’d been the problem.
“She storms out of another meeting, trying to make it unproductive,” said House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy.
White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham called Pelosi’s action “baffling but not surprising.”
She said the speaker “had no intention of listening or contributing to an important meeting on national security issues.”
Trump himself has stalked out of his White House meetings with congressional leaders — in May, saying he would no longer work with Democrats unless they dropped all Russia investigations, and last January during the partial government shutdown.
Separately on Wednesday, a letter was disclosed in which he both cajoled and threatened Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, urging him to act only in “the right and humane way” in Syria.
He started on a positive note, suggesting they “work out a good deal,” but then talked about crippling economic sanctions and concluded that the world “will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen."
"Don’t be a tough guy."
"Don’t be a fool!”
In public appearances Wednesday, Trump said he was fulfilling a campaign promise to bring U.S. troops home from “endless wars” in the Middle East -- casting aside criticism that a sudden U.S. withdrawal from Syria betrays the Kurdish fighters, stains U.S. credibility around the world and opens an important region to Russia, which is moving in.
“We have a situation where Turkey is taking land from Syria."
"Syria’s not happy about it."
"Let them work it out,” Trump said.
“They have a problem at a border."
"It’s not our border."
"We shouldn’t be losing lives over it.”
Trump said he was sending Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Ankara to urge the Turks to halt their weeklong offensive into northeastern Syria.
But his remarks, first to reporters in the Oval Office and later at a news conference with his Italian counterpart, suggested he sees little at stake for America.
“Syria may have some help with Russia, and that’s fine,” he said.
“They’ve got a lot of sand over there."
"So, there’s a lot of sand that they can play with.”
“Let them fight their own wars.”
More than once, Trump suggested the United States has little concern in the Middle East because it is geographically distant -- a notion shared by some prior to Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida militants used Afghanistan as a base from which to attack the U.S.
That attack set off a series of armed conflicts, including in Iraq, that Trump considers a waste of American lives and treasure.
The current withdrawal is the worst decision of Trump’s presidency, said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who meets often with the president and is one of his strongest and most important supporters in Congress.
“To those who think the Mideast doesn’t matter to America, remember 9/11 -- we had that same attitude on 9/10 2001.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he strongly disagreed with Trump and had told the president so.
But he asked, “What tools do we have” to back up that disagreement?
Turkish troops and Turkish-backed Syrian fighters launched their offensive against Kurdish forces in northern Syria a week ago, two days after Trump suddenly announced he was withdrawing the U.S. from the area.
Turkey’s Erdogan has said he wants to create a 30-kilometer (20-mile) -deep “safe zone” in Syria.
Ankara has long argued the Kurdish fighters are nothing more than an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a guerrilla campaign inside Turkey since the 1980s and which Turkey, as well as the U.S. and European Union, designate as a terrorist organization.
Trump mischaracterized the progress made thus far by the U.S. military in carrying out his instructions to withdraw all 1,000 troops in northeastern Syria.
He referred to the approximately two dozen soldiers who evacuated from Turkey’s initial attack zone last week, but cast that as meaning the U.S. has “largely” completed its pullout.
A U.S. official familiar with planning for the withdrawal of the 1,000 said that they are consolidating onto two main bases but have not yet begun flying out of Syria in significant numbers.
Military equipment is being gathered and flown out, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the withdrawal, which poses big security risks.
Trump downplayed the crisis that followed his decision to pull out of Syria, which critics say amounted to giving Turkey a green light to invade against the Kurdish fighters.
“It’s not between Turkey and the United States, like a lot of stupid people would like you to believe,” Trump said.
“Our soldiers are not in harm’s way, as they shouldn’t be.”
Trump did impose new sanctions on Turkey this week in an attempt to force Erdogan to end his assault.
But he said Wednesday, “It’s time for us to come home.”
Even as Trump defended his removal of U.S. troops from northeastern Syria, he praised his decision to send more troops and military equipment to Saudi Arabia to help the kingdom defend against Iran.
Trump said the U.S. is sending missiles and “great power” to the Saudis, and “they’re paying for that.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-d ... latestnews
TURKEY
Re: TURKEY
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Trump Said to Favor Leaving a Few Hundred Troops in Eastern Syria"
Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman
21 OCTOBER 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump is leaning in favor of a new Pentagon plan to keep a small contingent of American troops in eastern Syria, perhaps numbering about 200, to combat the Islamic State and block the advance of Syrian government and Russian forces into the region’s coveted oil fields, a senior administration official said on Sunday.
If Mr. Trump approves the proposal to leave a couple of hundred Special Operations forces in eastern Syria, it would mark the second time in 10 months that he has reversed his order to pull out nearly all American troops from the country.
Last December, Mr. Trump directed 2,000 American troops to leave Syria immediately, only to relent later and approve a more gradual withdrawal.
The decision would also be the potential second major political reversal in a matter of days under pressure from his own party, after he rescinded on Saturday a decision to host next year’s Group of 7 summit at his own resort.
Mr. Trump has come under withering criticism from former military commanders, Democrats and even some of his staunchest Republican allies for pulling back United States troops from Syria’s border with Turkey, clearing the way for a Turkish offensive that in nearly two weeks has killed scores of Syrian Kurdish fighters and civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents.
A senior administration official said on Sunday that Mr. Trump has since last week been considering a plan to leave a couple of hundred troops in northeast Syria, near the border with Iraq, for counterterrorism efforts.
The official said it is a concept Mr. Trump favors.
Three other administration and Defense Department officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential military planning, confirmed over the weekend that the option was being discussed among top American policymakers and commanders.
The senior administration official said it was highly likely that troops would be kept along the Iraqi border area — away from the cease-fire zone that Vice President Mike Pence negotiated with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey last week.
The main goal would be to prevent the Islamic State from re-establishing all or parts of its religious state, or caliphate, in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
A side benefit would be helping the Kurds keep control of oil fields in the east, the official said.
Mr. Trump seemed to hint at this outcome in a message on Twitter on Sunday, saying, “We have secured the Oil.”
The senior administration official suggested that the president was balancing competing impulses: achieving the ultimate goal of bringing United State forces home from Syria — part of a signature campaign promise to pull American troops from “endless wars” — and ensuring that efforts to contain and diminish ISIS continue.
The order also could be heard as at least a partial answer to those who have criticized the president’s policy.
The officials indicated that Mr. Trump could describe the continued deployment of the small contingent of troops as a thoughtful, reasonable way to help safeguard regional and American security without violating his campaign pledge.
The senior official insisted the president’s approach to the incursion ordered by Mr. Erdogan had been mischaracterized, and pushed back against a widely held public narrative that Mr. Trump “greenlighted” the attack.
Critics of Mr. Trump’s Syria policy have said the president, by telling Mr. Erdogan that he would order American troops to pull back from positions along the border where they had fought alongside Syrian Kurds, essentially acquiesced to the Turkish offensive.
Mr. Erdogan called Mr. Trump on Oct. 6 for the express purpose of informing him that Turkish forces planned to cross the border, the official said, and Mr. Trump made it clear to him that it was not a good idea — and did not endorse the attack.
Mr. Trump followed up on Oct. 9 with a now-infamous letter to Mr. Erdogan.
The senior administration official said that the American troops were withdrawn from the border area because Turkish forces were coming across into Syria, and that they were sitting in harm’s way, a rationale that Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also have expressed in recent days.
Spokeswomen for Mr. Esper and General Milley declined on Sunday to comment on any options under discussion.
White House officials argue that leaving a small contingent of troops in eastern Syria is not a policy reversal because the goal of the original withdrawal was to protect lives.
Unlike Mr. Trump’s withdrawal order in December, administration officials say, this time was never about bringing troops home because they were always going to remain elsewhere in the region, in particular in Iraq.
But the White House has struggled to articulate a clear position on what the administration is trying to accomplish as Mr. Erdogan has clearly been undeterred and Mr. Trump, who hates appearing weak, has shrugged off the fighting on his Twitter feed and in a campaign rally.
“It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home."
"WE WILL FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN."
"Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Oct. 7.
“After defeating 100% of the ISIS Caliphate, I largely moved our troops out of Syria."
"Let Syria and Assad protect the Kurds and fight Turkey for their own land."
"I said to my Generals, why should we be fighting for Syria and Assad to protect the land of our enemy?” Mr. Trump said in another Twitter message on Oct. 14.
The discussion over leaving a residual counterterrorism force in eastern Syria was unfolding as the bulk of the nearly 1,000 American forces now in Syria continued to withdraw on Sunday.
Mr. Esper told reporters traveling with him to Afghanistan on Saturday that the troops would go to bases in western Iraq.
From there, Mr. Esper said, American troops would “help defend Iraq” and “perform a counter-ISIS mission” — presumably carrying out periodic cross-border Special Operations raids and conducting armed drone strikes against Islamic State cells.
ISIS has already sought to exploit the chaos in northern Syria to break out insurgents from Kurdish-run jails, to attack Kurdish fighters and to regain momentum overall.
“They will rally."
"These are resilient adversaries,” Gen. Tony Thomas, who retired after serving as head of the military’s Special Operations Command, said of the Islamic State on the CBS program “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“We’ve done nothing to knock down the ideology, and I think they’ll see this as certainly a respite, if not an opportunity to have a resurgence.”
The proposal to keep a counterterrorism force in eastern Syria resulted from the Defense Department directing the military’s Central Command in recent days to provide options for continuing the fight against Islamic State in Syria.
One of those options, which is said to be Mr. Trump’s choice, would keep a contingent of about 200 Special Operations forces at a few bases in eastern Syria, some near the Iraqi border, where they have been working alongside Syrian Kurdish partners.
Military officials also are expected to brief Mr. Trump this week on that plan and of the other counterterrorism options — including keeping some troops in Syria and using other commandos based in Iraq.
Mr. Trump would need to approve any plan to leave forces in any part of Syria in addition to the about 150 in Al-Tanf, a small garrison in south-central Syria.
The commander of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazlum Kobani, whose fighters switched sides to join Syrian government forces after Mr. Trump announced the American withdrawal, said on Saturday that despite the Turkish offensive, his troops had resumed counterterrorism operations near Deir al-Zour.
American officials widely interpreted the comments as a signal to Washington that the Syrian Kurds were still willing to fight in partnership with the United States against the Islamic State in eastern Syria, despite their abandonment in other parts of the country.
Some lawmakers suggested that it may be too late to contain the damage done to the counterterrorism mission and, more broadly, American credibility overseas.
Representative Will Hurd, a Texas Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, described the cease-fire agreement announced on Thursday as “terms of surrender” to Turkey.
Also appearing on “Face the Nation,” Mr. Hurd, a former C.I.A. officer, referred to Turkey, a NATO ally, as part of a group of American “enemies” and “adversaries” who will benefit from the cease-fire agreement.
“Our enemies and our adversaries like Iran, Russia, Turkey, they’re playing chess,” he said.
“Unfortunately, this administration is playing checkers.”
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tru ... P17#page=2
"Trump Said to Favor Leaving a Few Hundred Troops in Eastern Syria"
Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman
21 OCTOBER 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump is leaning in favor of a new Pentagon plan to keep a small contingent of American troops in eastern Syria, perhaps numbering about 200, to combat the Islamic State and block the advance of Syrian government and Russian forces into the region’s coveted oil fields, a senior administration official said on Sunday.
If Mr. Trump approves the proposal to leave a couple of hundred Special Operations forces in eastern Syria, it would mark the second time in 10 months that he has reversed his order to pull out nearly all American troops from the country.
Last December, Mr. Trump directed 2,000 American troops to leave Syria immediately, only to relent later and approve a more gradual withdrawal.
The decision would also be the potential second major political reversal in a matter of days under pressure from his own party, after he rescinded on Saturday a decision to host next year’s Group of 7 summit at his own resort.
Mr. Trump has come under withering criticism from former military commanders, Democrats and even some of his staunchest Republican allies for pulling back United States troops from Syria’s border with Turkey, clearing the way for a Turkish offensive that in nearly two weeks has killed scores of Syrian Kurdish fighters and civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents.
A senior administration official said on Sunday that Mr. Trump has since last week been considering a plan to leave a couple of hundred troops in northeast Syria, near the border with Iraq, for counterterrorism efforts.
The official said it is a concept Mr. Trump favors.
Three other administration and Defense Department officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential military planning, confirmed over the weekend that the option was being discussed among top American policymakers and commanders.
The senior administration official said it was highly likely that troops would be kept along the Iraqi border area — away from the cease-fire zone that Vice President Mike Pence negotiated with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey last week.
The main goal would be to prevent the Islamic State from re-establishing all or parts of its religious state, or caliphate, in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
A side benefit would be helping the Kurds keep control of oil fields in the east, the official said.
Mr. Trump seemed to hint at this outcome in a message on Twitter on Sunday, saying, “We have secured the Oil.”
The senior administration official suggested that the president was balancing competing impulses: achieving the ultimate goal of bringing United State forces home from Syria — part of a signature campaign promise to pull American troops from “endless wars” — and ensuring that efforts to contain and diminish ISIS continue.
The order also could be heard as at least a partial answer to those who have criticized the president’s policy.
The officials indicated that Mr. Trump could describe the continued deployment of the small contingent of troops as a thoughtful, reasonable way to help safeguard regional and American security without violating his campaign pledge.
The senior official insisted the president’s approach to the incursion ordered by Mr. Erdogan had been mischaracterized, and pushed back against a widely held public narrative that Mr. Trump “greenlighted” the attack.
Critics of Mr. Trump’s Syria policy have said the president, by telling Mr. Erdogan that he would order American troops to pull back from positions along the border where they had fought alongside Syrian Kurds, essentially acquiesced to the Turkish offensive.
Mr. Erdogan called Mr. Trump on Oct. 6 for the express purpose of informing him that Turkish forces planned to cross the border, the official said, and Mr. Trump made it clear to him that it was not a good idea — and did not endorse the attack.
Mr. Trump followed up on Oct. 9 with a now-infamous letter to Mr. Erdogan.
The senior administration official said that the American troops were withdrawn from the border area because Turkish forces were coming across into Syria, and that they were sitting in harm’s way, a rationale that Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also have expressed in recent days.
Spokeswomen for Mr. Esper and General Milley declined on Sunday to comment on any options under discussion.
White House officials argue that leaving a small contingent of troops in eastern Syria is not a policy reversal because the goal of the original withdrawal was to protect lives.
Unlike Mr. Trump’s withdrawal order in December, administration officials say, this time was never about bringing troops home because they were always going to remain elsewhere in the region, in particular in Iraq.
But the White House has struggled to articulate a clear position on what the administration is trying to accomplish as Mr. Erdogan has clearly been undeterred and Mr. Trump, who hates appearing weak, has shrugged off the fighting on his Twitter feed and in a campaign rally.
“It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home."
"WE WILL FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN."
"Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Oct. 7.
“After defeating 100% of the ISIS Caliphate, I largely moved our troops out of Syria."
"Let Syria and Assad protect the Kurds and fight Turkey for their own land."
"I said to my Generals, why should we be fighting for Syria and Assad to protect the land of our enemy?” Mr. Trump said in another Twitter message on Oct. 14.
The discussion over leaving a residual counterterrorism force in eastern Syria was unfolding as the bulk of the nearly 1,000 American forces now in Syria continued to withdraw on Sunday.
Mr. Esper told reporters traveling with him to Afghanistan on Saturday that the troops would go to bases in western Iraq.
From there, Mr. Esper said, American troops would “help defend Iraq” and “perform a counter-ISIS mission” — presumably carrying out periodic cross-border Special Operations raids and conducting armed drone strikes against Islamic State cells.
ISIS has already sought to exploit the chaos in northern Syria to break out insurgents from Kurdish-run jails, to attack Kurdish fighters and to regain momentum overall.
“They will rally."
"These are resilient adversaries,” Gen. Tony Thomas, who retired after serving as head of the military’s Special Operations Command, said of the Islamic State on the CBS program “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“We’ve done nothing to knock down the ideology, and I think they’ll see this as certainly a respite, if not an opportunity to have a resurgence.”
The proposal to keep a counterterrorism force in eastern Syria resulted from the Defense Department directing the military’s Central Command in recent days to provide options for continuing the fight against Islamic State in Syria.
One of those options, which is said to be Mr. Trump’s choice, would keep a contingent of about 200 Special Operations forces at a few bases in eastern Syria, some near the Iraqi border, where they have been working alongside Syrian Kurdish partners.
Military officials also are expected to brief Mr. Trump this week on that plan and of the other counterterrorism options — including keeping some troops in Syria and using other commandos based in Iraq.
Mr. Trump would need to approve any plan to leave forces in any part of Syria in addition to the about 150 in Al-Tanf, a small garrison in south-central Syria.
The commander of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazlum Kobani, whose fighters switched sides to join Syrian government forces after Mr. Trump announced the American withdrawal, said on Saturday that despite the Turkish offensive, his troops had resumed counterterrorism operations near Deir al-Zour.
American officials widely interpreted the comments as a signal to Washington that the Syrian Kurds were still willing to fight in partnership with the United States against the Islamic State in eastern Syria, despite their abandonment in other parts of the country.
Some lawmakers suggested that it may be too late to contain the damage done to the counterterrorism mission and, more broadly, American credibility overseas.
Representative Will Hurd, a Texas Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, described the cease-fire agreement announced on Thursday as “terms of surrender” to Turkey.
Also appearing on “Face the Nation,” Mr. Hurd, a former C.I.A. officer, referred to Turkey, a NATO ally, as part of a group of American “enemies” and “adversaries” who will benefit from the cease-fire agreement.
“Our enemies and our adversaries like Iran, Russia, Turkey, they’re playing chess,” he said.
“Unfortunately, this administration is playing checkers.”
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tru ... P17#page=2
Re: TURKEY
ERDOGAN IS A SACK OF WIND PUFFING OUT COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF SMOKE ...
CBS NEWS
"Turkey's Erdogan threatens to "crush" former U.S. allies in Syria"
CBSNews
22 OCTOBER 2019
Sanliurfa, Turkey — Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to "crush the heads" of America's former allies, the Kurdish-led forces in Syria, if they don't fully withdraw from the Turkey-Syria border by Tuesday evening.
The five-day ceasefire that the Trump administration got Erdogan to agree to expires at 7 p.m. local time, or noon Eastern.
Erdogan has said if the Kurds aren't completely out of what he's dubbed a "safe zone," stretching across most of Syria's northern border and about 20 miles south into Syrian territory, his offensive against them will resume.
Already it is said to have claimed dozens of civilian lives and has driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.
So as CBS News Holly Williams reports, the stakes were high on Tuesday as Erdogan met President Vladimir Putin in Russia.
The future of Syria could be decided at their meeting; Russia is poised to step into the power vacuum the U.S. left behind when President Trump ordered American troops to leave northeast Syria earlier this month, effectively opening the door to a deadly Turkish offensive.
Those U.S. forces only numbered around 1,000, but with their Kurdish partners they were able to beat back ISIS and bring relative stability to a large swathe of Syria after six years of war.
Thousands of the Kurdish-led fighters died battling ISIS, and now say they've been betrayed by America.
About 200,000 civilians have fled the clashes with Turkey, and a Kurdish lawmaker called on President Trump Monday to stop what she called "ethnic cleansing" of the Kurds in northern Syria.
Turkey, however, insists its offensive has not targeted civilians.
Erdogan's government views the Kurdish-led forces as terrorists linked to a separatist movement based in southern Turkey.
Syria's Russian-backed President Bashar Assad has lambasted Turkey for its offensive on his soil, and chided the Syrian Kurds for seeking help from the U.S.
On Tuesday the Syrian dictator paid a visit to his troops on the front lines of Idlib province, in territory recently reclaimed from Turkish-backed militias.
It was his first visit to the province in seven years.
Arriving in the southern countryside of Idlib, Assad strongly denounced Erdogan for the incursion into northern Syria, calling him "a thief."
"He has robbed the factories, wheat and oil, and today he is robbing the land," Assad asserted.
Since the U.S. began moving its forces out of the region, the long-time U.S. allies of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who for years helped the U.S. battle ISIS while also fending off attacks from Assad's forces, have formed limited partnerships with the Syrian leader's Russian-backed regime.
President Trump has warned Erdogan to restrain his forces and threatened to destroy Turkey's economy if the offensive goes too far.
But on Monday, Mr. Trump also said the U.S. had "never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tur ... P17#page=2
CBS NEWS
"Turkey's Erdogan threatens to "crush" former U.S. allies in Syria"
CBSNews
22 OCTOBER 2019
Sanliurfa, Turkey — Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to "crush the heads" of America's former allies, the Kurdish-led forces in Syria, if they don't fully withdraw from the Turkey-Syria border by Tuesday evening.
The five-day ceasefire that the Trump administration got Erdogan to agree to expires at 7 p.m. local time, or noon Eastern.
Erdogan has said if the Kurds aren't completely out of what he's dubbed a "safe zone," stretching across most of Syria's northern border and about 20 miles south into Syrian territory, his offensive against them will resume.
Already it is said to have claimed dozens of civilian lives and has driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.
So as CBS News Holly Williams reports, the stakes were high on Tuesday as Erdogan met President Vladimir Putin in Russia.
The future of Syria could be decided at their meeting; Russia is poised to step into the power vacuum the U.S. left behind when President Trump ordered American troops to leave northeast Syria earlier this month, effectively opening the door to a deadly Turkish offensive.
Those U.S. forces only numbered around 1,000, but with their Kurdish partners they were able to beat back ISIS and bring relative stability to a large swathe of Syria after six years of war.
Thousands of the Kurdish-led fighters died battling ISIS, and now say they've been betrayed by America.
About 200,000 civilians have fled the clashes with Turkey, and a Kurdish lawmaker called on President Trump Monday to stop what she called "ethnic cleansing" of the Kurds in northern Syria.
Turkey, however, insists its offensive has not targeted civilians.
Erdogan's government views the Kurdish-led forces as terrorists linked to a separatist movement based in southern Turkey.
Syria's Russian-backed President Bashar Assad has lambasted Turkey for its offensive on his soil, and chided the Syrian Kurds for seeking help from the U.S.
On Tuesday the Syrian dictator paid a visit to his troops on the front lines of Idlib province, in territory recently reclaimed from Turkish-backed militias.
It was his first visit to the province in seven years.
Arriving in the southern countryside of Idlib, Assad strongly denounced Erdogan for the incursion into northern Syria, calling him "a thief."
"He has robbed the factories, wheat and oil, and today he is robbing the land," Assad asserted.
Since the U.S. began moving its forces out of the region, the long-time U.S. allies of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who for years helped the U.S. battle ISIS while also fending off attacks from Assad's forces, have formed limited partnerships with the Syrian leader's Russian-backed regime.
President Trump has warned Erdogan to restrain his forces and threatened to destroy Turkey's economy if the offensive goes too far.
But on Monday, Mr. Trump also said the U.S. had "never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tur ... P17#page=2
Re: TURKEY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
"U.S. Weighs Leaving More Troops, Sending Battle Tanks to Syria"
Gordon Lubold, Nancy A. Youssef
25 OCTOBER 2019
WASHINGTON—The White House is considering options for leaving about 500 U.S. troops in northeast Syria and for sending dozens of battle tanks and other equipment, officials said Thursday, the latest in an array of scenarios following President Trump’s decision this month to remove all troops there.
The options, presented by military officials, would represent a reversal from the American withdrawal Mr. Trump wanted.
It also would modify U.S. objectives — from countering Islamic State extremists to also safeguarding oil fields in eastern Syria with additional troops and new military capability.
Washington sees the fields as potential leverage in future negotiations over Syria.
“We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!” Mr. Trump said Thursday in a Twitter message, referring to Islamic State.
The options for tanks and troops, which hasn’t been decided, were being discussed in Washington as Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in Brussels, urged U.S. allies at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting to respond to Turkey’s incursion into Syria earlier this month.
Mr. Esper’s request came amid fissures in the security bloc’s approach to the crisis and over the Trump administration’s policy shifts.
Mr. Trump earlier this month ordered all U.S. troops out of northern Syria, a move that was criticized by Kurdish fighters allied with the U.S. as an abandonment.
Critics say Turkey launched the mission because it believed Mr. Trump greenlighted the move during an Oct. 6 call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mr. Trump said he didn’t give a go-ahead for the assault.
The U.S. leader then imposed sanctions on Turkey and threatened to destroy the NATO ally’s economy before lifting the sanctions when Turkey announced a cease-fire.
Mr. Esper said he supported a proposal this week by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to create an international security zone in northern Syria with Russia and Turkey, which have already made their own deal to secure the region.
Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer outlined her proposal at the NATO meeting, noting that the Russia-Turkey deal was insufficient to bring long-term peace.
“There are different views,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Thursday evening.
“This was an open and frank discussion among friends and allies."
"There is strong support for a political solution.”
Mr. Trump, after ordering all U.S. forces out of northeastern Syria in early October, said later that he would agree to leave about 200 troops in northeast Syria to safeguard oil fields.
The move came after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) outlined the potential importance of the oil.
Mr. Graham suggested in remarks to reporters at the Capitol on Thursday that American troops would end up securing the oil fields.
He was among eight to 10 senators briefed by the White House on Thursday.
“There are some plans coming together from the Joint Chiefs that I think may work, that may give us what we need to prevent ISIS from coming back, Iran taking the oil, ISIS from taking the oil,” he said.
“I am somewhat encouraged that a plan is coming about that will meet our core objectives in Syria.”
The top U.S. envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said in testimony Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. also may hang onto a Syrian airfield.
“We do contemplate, I believe, maintaining one of our two airfields that are there,” Mr. Jeffrey said.
The option of sending tanks was earlier reported by Newsweek.
While the Trump administration’s plans for U.S. troops in Syria shifts, so do the plans for what to do with the approximately 1,000 U.S. troops, most of them special operations forces, following Mr. Trump’s order to withdraw.
Mr. Esper said over the weekend that most of the troops would go to neighboring Iraq, triggering a pointed reaction from Baghdad, where officials said those troops would only be able to remain for a period of four weeks.
Meeting at NATO headquarters, Mr. Esper criticized Ankara for its assault.
“Turkey’s unwarranted incursion into northern Syria jeopardizes the gains made there in recent years,” Mr. Esper said.
“Turkey put us all in a terrible situation,” he added later.
For NATO, disagreement over how to address Turkey’s actions strikes another blow to the unity of an alliance already rocked by Mr. Trump’s frequent broadsides over what he says is insufficient military spending by allies.
French President Emmanuel Macron — whose country has special forces in northern Syria — has responded with anger over the abrupt U.S. move to withdraw troops from Syria, which he said he learned about on Twitter.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has further exasperated NATO allies by deepening his relationship with President Vladimir Putin, including through the purchase of an air-defense system from Russia.
“The direction of Turkey with regard to the alliance is heading in the wrong direction,” Mr. Esper said.
Write to Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/u-s ... li=BBnb7Kz
"U.S. Weighs Leaving More Troops, Sending Battle Tanks to Syria"
Gordon Lubold, Nancy A. Youssef
25 OCTOBER 2019
WASHINGTON—The White House is considering options for leaving about 500 U.S. troops in northeast Syria and for sending dozens of battle tanks and other equipment, officials said Thursday, the latest in an array of scenarios following President Trump’s decision this month to remove all troops there.
The options, presented by military officials, would represent a reversal from the American withdrawal Mr. Trump wanted.
It also would modify U.S. objectives — from countering Islamic State extremists to also safeguarding oil fields in eastern Syria with additional troops and new military capability.
Washington sees the fields as potential leverage in future negotiations over Syria.
“We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!” Mr. Trump said Thursday in a Twitter message, referring to Islamic State.
The options for tanks and troops, which hasn’t been decided, were being discussed in Washington as Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in Brussels, urged U.S. allies at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting to respond to Turkey’s incursion into Syria earlier this month.
Mr. Esper’s request came amid fissures in the security bloc’s approach to the crisis and over the Trump administration’s policy shifts.
Mr. Trump earlier this month ordered all U.S. troops out of northern Syria, a move that was criticized by Kurdish fighters allied with the U.S. as an abandonment.
Critics say Turkey launched the mission because it believed Mr. Trump greenlighted the move during an Oct. 6 call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mr. Trump said he didn’t give a go-ahead for the assault.
The U.S. leader then imposed sanctions on Turkey and threatened to destroy the NATO ally’s economy before lifting the sanctions when Turkey announced a cease-fire.
Mr. Esper said he supported a proposal this week by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to create an international security zone in northern Syria with Russia and Turkey, which have already made their own deal to secure the region.
Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer outlined her proposal at the NATO meeting, noting that the Russia-Turkey deal was insufficient to bring long-term peace.
“There are different views,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Thursday evening.
“This was an open and frank discussion among friends and allies."
"There is strong support for a political solution.”
Mr. Trump, after ordering all U.S. forces out of northeastern Syria in early October, said later that he would agree to leave about 200 troops in northeast Syria to safeguard oil fields.
The move came after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) outlined the potential importance of the oil.
Mr. Graham suggested in remarks to reporters at the Capitol on Thursday that American troops would end up securing the oil fields.
He was among eight to 10 senators briefed by the White House on Thursday.
“There are some plans coming together from the Joint Chiefs that I think may work, that may give us what we need to prevent ISIS from coming back, Iran taking the oil, ISIS from taking the oil,” he said.
“I am somewhat encouraged that a plan is coming about that will meet our core objectives in Syria.”
The top U.S. envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said in testimony Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. also may hang onto a Syrian airfield.
“We do contemplate, I believe, maintaining one of our two airfields that are there,” Mr. Jeffrey said.
The option of sending tanks was earlier reported by Newsweek.
While the Trump administration’s plans for U.S. troops in Syria shifts, so do the plans for what to do with the approximately 1,000 U.S. troops, most of them special operations forces, following Mr. Trump’s order to withdraw.
Mr. Esper said over the weekend that most of the troops would go to neighboring Iraq, triggering a pointed reaction from Baghdad, where officials said those troops would only be able to remain for a period of four weeks.
Meeting at NATO headquarters, Mr. Esper criticized Ankara for its assault.
“Turkey’s unwarranted incursion into northern Syria jeopardizes the gains made there in recent years,” Mr. Esper said.
“Turkey put us all in a terrible situation,” he added later.
For NATO, disagreement over how to address Turkey’s actions strikes another blow to the unity of an alliance already rocked by Mr. Trump’s frequent broadsides over what he says is insufficient military spending by allies.
French President Emmanuel Macron — whose country has special forces in northern Syria — has responded with anger over the abrupt U.S. move to withdraw troops from Syria, which he said he learned about on Twitter.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has further exasperated NATO allies by deepening his relationship with President Vladimir Putin, including through the purchase of an air-defense system from Russia.
“The direction of Turkey with regard to the alliance is heading in the wrong direction,” Mr. Esper said.
Write to Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/u-s ... li=BBnb7Kz
Re: TURKEY
AFP
"15 dead in Syria clashes between pro-Turkish forces, Kurds: monitor"
afp.com
27 OCTOBER 2019
Clashes in northeast Syria between pro-Ankara fighters backed by the Turkish air force and a Damascus-backed force led by Syrian Kurds left 15 dead on Saturday, a monitor said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that nine pro-Turkish fighters and six members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in a zone between the towns of Tal Tamr and Ras al-Ain.
State news agency SANA said earlier Syrian government forces had entered the provincial borders of Ras al-Ain near Turkey's border on Saturday, an area that was taken by Turkish forces in the latter's weeks-long offensive against Syria's Kurds.
The Observatory said the Syrian government's deployment there was its largest in years.
Syrian government troops had also deployed along a road stretching some 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of the frontier, SANA said.
Turkey and its Syrian proxies on October 9 launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish-held areas, grabbing a 120-kilometre-long (70-mile) swathe of Syrian land along the frontier.
The incursion left hundreds dead and caused 300,000 people to flee their homes, in the latest humanitarian crisis in Syria's brutal eight-year war.
Turkey and Russia this week struck a deal in Sochi for more Kurdish forces to withdraw from the frontier on both sides of that Turkish-held area under the supervision of Russian and Syrian forces.
On Saturday, the Britain-based Observatory said some 2,000 Syrian troops and hundreds of military vehicles were deploying around what Turkey calls its "safe zone".
Government forces were being accompanied by Russian military police, the Observatory said.
Moscow has said 300 Russian military police had arrived in Syria to help ensure Kurdish forces withdraw to a line 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border in keeping with Tuesday's agreement.
Under the Sochi deal, Kurdish forces have until late Tuesday to withdraw from border areas at either end of the Turkish-held area, before joint Turkish-Russian patrols start in a 10-kilometre (six-mile) strip there.
Ankara eventually wants to set up a buffer zone on Syrian soil along the entire length of its 440-kilometre-long border, including to resettle some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.
The SDF has objected to some provisions of the Sochi agreement and it has so far maintained several border posts.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Saturday that Ankara would "clear terrorists" on its border if the Kurdish forces, which his country view as an offshoot of its own banned insurgency, did not withdraw by the deadline.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/15- ... li=BBnb7Kz
"15 dead in Syria clashes between pro-Turkish forces, Kurds: monitor"
afp.com
27 OCTOBER 2019
Clashes in northeast Syria between pro-Ankara fighters backed by the Turkish air force and a Damascus-backed force led by Syrian Kurds left 15 dead on Saturday, a monitor said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that nine pro-Turkish fighters and six members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in a zone between the towns of Tal Tamr and Ras al-Ain.
State news agency SANA said earlier Syrian government forces had entered the provincial borders of Ras al-Ain near Turkey's border on Saturday, an area that was taken by Turkish forces in the latter's weeks-long offensive against Syria's Kurds.
The Observatory said the Syrian government's deployment there was its largest in years.
Syrian government troops had also deployed along a road stretching some 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of the frontier, SANA said.
Turkey and its Syrian proxies on October 9 launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish-held areas, grabbing a 120-kilometre-long (70-mile) swathe of Syrian land along the frontier.
The incursion left hundreds dead and caused 300,000 people to flee their homes, in the latest humanitarian crisis in Syria's brutal eight-year war.
Turkey and Russia this week struck a deal in Sochi for more Kurdish forces to withdraw from the frontier on both sides of that Turkish-held area under the supervision of Russian and Syrian forces.
On Saturday, the Britain-based Observatory said some 2,000 Syrian troops and hundreds of military vehicles were deploying around what Turkey calls its "safe zone".
Government forces were being accompanied by Russian military police, the Observatory said.
Moscow has said 300 Russian military police had arrived in Syria to help ensure Kurdish forces withdraw to a line 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border in keeping with Tuesday's agreement.
Under the Sochi deal, Kurdish forces have until late Tuesday to withdraw from border areas at either end of the Turkish-held area, before joint Turkish-Russian patrols start in a 10-kilometre (six-mile) strip there.
Ankara eventually wants to set up a buffer zone on Syrian soil along the entire length of its 440-kilometre-long border, including to resettle some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.
The SDF has objected to some provisions of the Sochi agreement and it has so far maintained several border posts.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Saturday that Ankara would "clear terrorists" on its border if the Kurdish forces, which his country view as an offshoot of its own banned insurgency, did not withdraw by the deadline.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/15- ... li=BBnb7Kz
Re: TURKEY
THE WASHINGTON POST
"Dread in northern Syria as U.S. troops withdraw and cease-fire ends"
Louisa Loveluck
30 OCTOBER 2019
DERIK, Syria —As the final hours of a cease-fire in northeastern Syria wound down on Tuesday, dread descended on a region once shielded by the United States.
In towns and cities, families debated, and sometimes fought, over whether, and where, to run.
Selling their houses to pay for the help of unpredictable smugglers was one option.
Moving closer to the Iraqi border, where thousands of refugees had already crossed, and then praying the violence wouldn’t follow, was another.
“How do you decide what to do?"
"Do we wait, do we leave?” asked a young student, Marwa, in the Syrian border town of Derik.
“There are no good options."
"None.”
The end of the 150-hour cease-fire brokered by Russia threatened to reignite fighting that erupted after President Trump decided earlier this month to withdraw U.S. troops from the area and leave their Kurdish allies to fend for themselves in the face of a Turkish military offensive.
The temporary pause in hostilities also gave the various belligerents time to redraw the map of northern Syria and confront its residents with new realities and new risks.
As the mostly Syrian Kurdish fighters pulled back from the Turkish border, the Turkish military and its militia allies advanced from the north and Syrian government forces advanced from the south, retaking territory that had changed hands during the eight-year civil war.
The largely Kurdish communities of northeastern Syria feared both: their longtime Turkish adversaries and Syrian government forces that could view the locals as turncoats.
“The men feel strong, the women and children are scared, and no one knows what is coming,” said Jawan, 34, standing in Derik’s clothing bazaar, holding his 9-month-old daughter.
“This is bigger than us, really."
"America was meant to protect us, but that’s done now."
"So I guess we’ll just wait.”
While U.S. troops withdrew to the south and out of the area where they’d long kept the peace, Russian military police moved in.
Under an agreement reached last week between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Russian forces would now patrol the border.
At times, American and Russian armored vehicles passed on the road, each with their own red, white and blue flags flapping in the wind.
Shortly before the cease-fire expired on Tuesday evening, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that a “full implementation” of the Russian-Turkish deal — which called for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to retreat from the border area — had been achieved.
The Russian Defense Ministry, citing Major Gen. Yuri Borenkov, a senior military official working in Syria, said that 68 Kurdish units numbering 34,000 fighters had pulled back 19 miles from the border by Tuesday.
The only publicized withdrawal during the pause in Turkey’s offensive took place Sunday near the border town of Amuda, with the SDF waiting an hour for a Russian escort to arrive and lead the fighters south.
A group of children displaced from Ras al-Ayn, site of the worst fighting, had looked on.
And civilians stopped their cars to ask what might follow.
“Give us good news,” an old man implored Mustafa Bali, an SDF spokesman, clutching his hand.
Around the border towns of Ras al-Ayn and Tal Tamr, violence flared during the final hours of the cease-fire, suggesting that not all Kurdish fighters had withdrawn and that Turkish-backed troops were scrambling to seal control of the most contested areas.
Days earlier, as shells thudded in the background, a convoy of U.S. trucks moved along the roads of northern Syria, transporting troops, equipment and the paraphernalia of what had once been a busy military base.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Monday that the U.S. forces were being repositioned to secure oil fields in eastern Syria and make sure the Islamic State could not gain access to them.
This redeployment was a pivot from Trump’s earlier statement that U.S. troops were being sent home.
The shift in mission sowed confusion among the largely Kurdish forces and civilians.
“So they are leaving us for oil?” asked one man in a clinic Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he said he now feared for his security if he spoke to American journalists.
“We heard for years that all America cared about was oil, but we didn’t believe it, and we thought the Americans were our friends."
"Now what do we have left?”
After Trump announced his decision to withdraw U.S. troops, clearing the way for Turkey’s military campaign, hundreds of fighters and civilians have been killed.
About 200,000 people have fled their homes, according to the United Nations.
Trump’s decision marked a watershed moment in a long American effort to hold sway over parts of a Syria racked by the eight-year conflict.
As a largely peaceful uprising gave way to civil war, Washington opposed President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal, repressive tactics and supported an array of rebel groups.
But as the Islamic State rose and nationwide violence accelerated, northeastern Syria’s Kurdish-led force had become Washington’s favored, and finally their only, partner.
Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops away from the region has set the stage for a major shift in power here, with Russians ascendant and the Syrian Kurds turning to Assad’s forces for protection from Turkey.
In a sign of how marbled the battlefield has become, Syrian government forces have returned to fighting on the front lines in northeastern Syria, and they have suffered a stream of casualties in recent days.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least six Syrian government troops had been killed near Assadiya, south of Ras al-Ayn.
There were also reports that the Turkish-backed force had kidnapped and executed another soldier.
At a medical facility in Hasakah, three soldiers lay wounded and riddled with shrapnel.
One was unconscious and on life support.
His facial features had almost been burned off, a doctor said.
Mostly young, local and poorly equipped, soldiers interviewed across two medical facilities said that they had been sitting ducks in the face of Turkey’s heavy weapons.
“And we don’t have heavy weapons, just these guns,” said one Syrian government soldier, clutching a battered rifle.
He paced the yard at a Kurdish Red Crescent clinic in Tal Tamr while his friend was being treated inside for a gunshot wound to the chest.
The soldier watched as the latest ambulance pulled through the gates and medics wrenched open the door.
It was another Syrian government soldier.
The young man froze, then bolted to help.
“My brother, my brother,” he cried.
“What happened?”
louisa.loveluck@washpost.com
Ossama Mohammed contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/dre ... li=BBnb7Kz
"Dread in northern Syria as U.S. troops withdraw and cease-fire ends"
Louisa Loveluck
30 OCTOBER 2019
DERIK, Syria —As the final hours of a cease-fire in northeastern Syria wound down on Tuesday, dread descended on a region once shielded by the United States.
In towns and cities, families debated, and sometimes fought, over whether, and where, to run.
Selling their houses to pay for the help of unpredictable smugglers was one option.
Moving closer to the Iraqi border, where thousands of refugees had already crossed, and then praying the violence wouldn’t follow, was another.
“How do you decide what to do?"
"Do we wait, do we leave?” asked a young student, Marwa, in the Syrian border town of Derik.
“There are no good options."
"None.”
The end of the 150-hour cease-fire brokered by Russia threatened to reignite fighting that erupted after President Trump decided earlier this month to withdraw U.S. troops from the area and leave their Kurdish allies to fend for themselves in the face of a Turkish military offensive.
The temporary pause in hostilities also gave the various belligerents time to redraw the map of northern Syria and confront its residents with new realities and new risks.
As the mostly Syrian Kurdish fighters pulled back from the Turkish border, the Turkish military and its militia allies advanced from the north and Syrian government forces advanced from the south, retaking territory that had changed hands during the eight-year civil war.
The largely Kurdish communities of northeastern Syria feared both: their longtime Turkish adversaries and Syrian government forces that could view the locals as turncoats.
“The men feel strong, the women and children are scared, and no one knows what is coming,” said Jawan, 34, standing in Derik’s clothing bazaar, holding his 9-month-old daughter.
“This is bigger than us, really."
"America was meant to protect us, but that’s done now."
"So I guess we’ll just wait.”
While U.S. troops withdrew to the south and out of the area where they’d long kept the peace, Russian military police moved in.
Under an agreement reached last week between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Russian forces would now patrol the border.
At times, American and Russian armored vehicles passed on the road, each with their own red, white and blue flags flapping in the wind.
Shortly before the cease-fire expired on Tuesday evening, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that a “full implementation” of the Russian-Turkish deal — which called for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to retreat from the border area — had been achieved.
The Russian Defense Ministry, citing Major Gen. Yuri Borenkov, a senior military official working in Syria, said that 68 Kurdish units numbering 34,000 fighters had pulled back 19 miles from the border by Tuesday.
The only publicized withdrawal during the pause in Turkey’s offensive took place Sunday near the border town of Amuda, with the SDF waiting an hour for a Russian escort to arrive and lead the fighters south.
A group of children displaced from Ras al-Ayn, site of the worst fighting, had looked on.
And civilians stopped their cars to ask what might follow.
“Give us good news,” an old man implored Mustafa Bali, an SDF spokesman, clutching his hand.
Around the border towns of Ras al-Ayn and Tal Tamr, violence flared during the final hours of the cease-fire, suggesting that not all Kurdish fighters had withdrawn and that Turkish-backed troops were scrambling to seal control of the most contested areas.
Days earlier, as shells thudded in the background, a convoy of U.S. trucks moved along the roads of northern Syria, transporting troops, equipment and the paraphernalia of what had once been a busy military base.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Monday that the U.S. forces were being repositioned to secure oil fields in eastern Syria and make sure the Islamic State could not gain access to them.
This redeployment was a pivot from Trump’s earlier statement that U.S. troops were being sent home.
The shift in mission sowed confusion among the largely Kurdish forces and civilians.
“So they are leaving us for oil?” asked one man in a clinic Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he said he now feared for his security if he spoke to American journalists.
“We heard for years that all America cared about was oil, but we didn’t believe it, and we thought the Americans were our friends."
"Now what do we have left?”
After Trump announced his decision to withdraw U.S. troops, clearing the way for Turkey’s military campaign, hundreds of fighters and civilians have been killed.
About 200,000 people have fled their homes, according to the United Nations.
Trump’s decision marked a watershed moment in a long American effort to hold sway over parts of a Syria racked by the eight-year conflict.
As a largely peaceful uprising gave way to civil war, Washington opposed President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal, repressive tactics and supported an array of rebel groups.
But as the Islamic State rose and nationwide violence accelerated, northeastern Syria’s Kurdish-led force had become Washington’s favored, and finally their only, partner.
Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops away from the region has set the stage for a major shift in power here, with Russians ascendant and the Syrian Kurds turning to Assad’s forces for protection from Turkey.
In a sign of how marbled the battlefield has become, Syrian government forces have returned to fighting on the front lines in northeastern Syria, and they have suffered a stream of casualties in recent days.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least six Syrian government troops had been killed near Assadiya, south of Ras al-Ayn.
There were also reports that the Turkish-backed force had kidnapped and executed another soldier.
At a medical facility in Hasakah, three soldiers lay wounded and riddled with shrapnel.
One was unconscious and on life support.
His facial features had almost been burned off, a doctor said.
Mostly young, local and poorly equipped, soldiers interviewed across two medical facilities said that they had been sitting ducks in the face of Turkey’s heavy weapons.
“And we don’t have heavy weapons, just these guns,” said one Syrian government soldier, clutching a battered rifle.
He paced the yard at a Kurdish Red Crescent clinic in Tal Tamr while his friend was being treated inside for a gunshot wound to the chest.
The soldier watched as the latest ambulance pulled through the gates and medics wrenched open the door.
It was another Syrian government soldier.
The young man froze, then bolted to help.
“My brother, my brother,” he cried.
“What happened?”
louisa.loveluck@washpost.com
Ossama Mohammed contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/dre ... li=BBnb7Kz
Re: TURKEY
ABC NEWS
"Syrian Kurdish leader says Turkish attacks continue, contradicting US claims"
1 NOVEMBER 2019
The leader of the Syrian Kurds' civilian government accused Turkey and its forces of continuing its offensive into northern Syria using armed drones and heavy artillery, and conducting ethnic cleansing against the Syrian Kurds, despite ceasefire agreements.
The charge flies in the face of the Trump administration's characterization that its ceasefire with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has halted his operation and allowed U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces to again focus on fighting the remnants of the Islamic State.
"If the U.S. is really serious about sustaining the operation against terrorism, they should stop the Turkish incursion," said Ilham Ehmed, president of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which controls the territory in northeast Syria that they won back from ISIS with the U.S. and a global coalition.
While President Donald Trump has, for now, reversed his withdrawal and will now keep up to 900 troops in Syria, Ehmed said the administration's plans are unclear.
"The American map on Syria is not clear yet."
"We've just heard from our meetings here that they have the will to stay, but until when, why and for what, we have no clear answer yet," she said Thursday through a translator.
After fighting together, the SDF and SDC have accused the Trump administration of abandoning them when Trump moved U.S. forces back from the Turkish-Syrian border, effectively allowing Turkey to launch its offensive against the Syrian Kurds, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization because of its ties to Kurdish separatists in Turkey.
A U.S.-Turkish ceasefire halted that operation in return for the SDF departing the areas Turkey controlled.
U.S. officials said that will allow the fight against ISIS to resume, as U.S. forces remain behind to conduct joint operations against the terror group and protect oil fields from being exploited by it for revenue.
A senior State Department official told ABC News on Wednesday that there were "conflicting claims of who's where, whether people are still in the zone," but could not offer an update.
But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that he was "pleased" with how the ceasefire has held.
Ehmed said that was not true, however, describing daily attacks by armed drones and heavy shelling by Turkish forces and their allied Syrian opposition forces.
"No, it did not stop at all."
"There was a media announcement."
"... But practically speaking, the military attacks have been carried out a daily basis, they did not stop at all," she said.
Turkey has accused Syrian Kurdish forces of not exiting the full buffer zone that Erdogan negotiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, days after reaching the deal with Vice President Mike Pence.
Turkey and Russia began joint patrols on Wednesday to inspect the area and ensure its cleared of Syrian Kurdish forces.
Instead of those joint patrols, Ehmed called for a no-fly zone and an international force to monitor security in the Turkish-Syrian border area.
"We call on the Pentagon to not allow Turkey to use the Syrian airspace, and we hold the Pentagon responsible for all the crimes committed by Turkey if they block the airspace," Ehmed said.
Ehmed and others testified last week before the House that Turkey and its opposition forces committed war crimes, including the use of white phosphorus as a weapon, attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and executing captured SDF fighters.
U.S. special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey said Wednesday that the U.S. had noted "several incidents which we consider war crimes" and was investigating how the white phosphorus was deployed.
Ehmed said the SDC had provided evidence and documentation to the U.S., but there were still American diplomatic and military personnel in the area who are "seeing the massacres in their naked eyes."
Since the Turkish operation began, Ehmed said that over 400,000 people were displaced, including 18,000 children; 412 SDF fighters had been killed and 419 injured; and 509 civilians had been killed and 2,733 injured.
ABC News could not independently verify those statistics.
Despite the anger and feelings of abandonment among Syrian Kurds, Ehmed said the SDF remains open to working with the U.S., but both sides need to rebuild "mutual trust."
"... We still hope that they are going to keep their promises and re-evaluate all the bad decisions that they're taking."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/syr ... 7Kz#page=2
"Syrian Kurdish leader says Turkish attacks continue, contradicting US claims"
1 NOVEMBER 2019
The leader of the Syrian Kurds' civilian government accused Turkey and its forces of continuing its offensive into northern Syria using armed drones and heavy artillery, and conducting ethnic cleansing against the Syrian Kurds, despite ceasefire agreements.
The charge flies in the face of the Trump administration's characterization that its ceasefire with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has halted his operation and allowed U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces to again focus on fighting the remnants of the Islamic State.
"If the U.S. is really serious about sustaining the operation against terrorism, they should stop the Turkish incursion," said Ilham Ehmed, president of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which controls the territory in northeast Syria that they won back from ISIS with the U.S. and a global coalition.
While President Donald Trump has, for now, reversed his withdrawal and will now keep up to 900 troops in Syria, Ehmed said the administration's plans are unclear.
"The American map on Syria is not clear yet."
"We've just heard from our meetings here that they have the will to stay, but until when, why and for what, we have no clear answer yet," she said Thursday through a translator.
After fighting together, the SDF and SDC have accused the Trump administration of abandoning them when Trump moved U.S. forces back from the Turkish-Syrian border, effectively allowing Turkey to launch its offensive against the Syrian Kurds, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization because of its ties to Kurdish separatists in Turkey.
A U.S.-Turkish ceasefire halted that operation in return for the SDF departing the areas Turkey controlled.
U.S. officials said that will allow the fight against ISIS to resume, as U.S. forces remain behind to conduct joint operations against the terror group and protect oil fields from being exploited by it for revenue.
A senior State Department official told ABC News on Wednesday that there were "conflicting claims of who's where, whether people are still in the zone," but could not offer an update.
But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that he was "pleased" with how the ceasefire has held.
Ehmed said that was not true, however, describing daily attacks by armed drones and heavy shelling by Turkish forces and their allied Syrian opposition forces.
"No, it did not stop at all."
"There was a media announcement."
"... But practically speaking, the military attacks have been carried out a daily basis, they did not stop at all," she said.
Turkey has accused Syrian Kurdish forces of not exiting the full buffer zone that Erdogan negotiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, days after reaching the deal with Vice President Mike Pence.
Turkey and Russia began joint patrols on Wednesday to inspect the area and ensure its cleared of Syrian Kurdish forces.
Instead of those joint patrols, Ehmed called for a no-fly zone and an international force to monitor security in the Turkish-Syrian border area.
"We call on the Pentagon to not allow Turkey to use the Syrian airspace, and we hold the Pentagon responsible for all the crimes committed by Turkey if they block the airspace," Ehmed said.
Ehmed and others testified last week before the House that Turkey and its opposition forces committed war crimes, including the use of white phosphorus as a weapon, attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and executing captured SDF fighters.
U.S. special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey said Wednesday that the U.S. had noted "several incidents which we consider war crimes" and was investigating how the white phosphorus was deployed.
Ehmed said the SDC had provided evidence and documentation to the U.S., but there were still American diplomatic and military personnel in the area who are "seeing the massacres in their naked eyes."
Since the Turkish operation began, Ehmed said that over 400,000 people were displaced, including 18,000 children; 412 SDF fighters had been killed and 419 injured; and 509 civilians had been killed and 2,733 injured.
ABC News could not independently verify those statistics.
Despite the anger and feelings of abandonment among Syrian Kurds, Ehmed said the SDF remains open to working with the U.S., but both sides need to rebuild "mutual trust."
"... We still hope that they are going to keep their promises and re-evaluate all the bad decisions that they're taking."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/syr ... 7Kz#page=2
Re: TURKEY
MARKETWATCH
"Airstrike in northern Syria kills at least 22 Turkish soldiers"
By Associated Press
Published: Feb 27, 2020 6:05 p.m. ET
BEIRUT — Nearly two dozen Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike by Syrian government forces in northeast Syria, a Turkish official said Friday.
The deaths mark a serious escalation in the direct conflict between Turkish and Russia-backed Syrian forces that has been waged since early February.
Rahmi Dogan, the governor of Turkey’s Hatay province bordering Syria’s Idlib region, said 22 troops were killed and others were seriously wounded in the attack late Thursday.
In addition to three Turkish soldiers killed in Idlib earlier Thursday, the casualties mark the largest death toll for Turkey in a single day since Ankara first intervened in Syria in 2016.
At least 43 have now been killed in Idlib since the start of February.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was holding an emergency security meeting in Ankara, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Meanwhile Turkish Foreign Minister Mevult Cavusoglu spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg by telephone.
The airstrike came after a Russian delegation spent two days in Ankara for talks with Turkish officials on the situation in Idlib, where a Syrian government offensive has sent hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing towards the Turkish border.
The offensive has also engulfed a many of the 12 military observation posts Turkey has in Idlib.
The airstrike came after Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters retook a strategic northwestern town from government forces on Thursday, opposition activists said, cutting a key highway just days after the government reopened it for the first time since 2012.
Despite losing the town of Saraqeb, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces made major gains to the south.
Assad now controls almost the entire southern part of Idlib province after capturing more than 20 villages Thursday, state media and opposition activists said.
It’s part of a weekslong campaign backed by Russian air power into Syria’s last rebel stronghold.
Violence in Idlib province also left three more Turkish soldiers dead, according to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raising the number of Turkish troops killed in Syria this month to 21.
Thousands of Turkish soldiers are deployed inside rebel-controlled areas of Idlib province, which is dominated by al-Qaida-linked militants.
Turkey’s U.N. Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu told the Security Council on Thursday that Turkey was committed to upholding a fragile cease-fire agreement that Turkey and Russia reached on Idlib in 2018.
The Syrian government troops’ “deliberate attacks on our forces has been a turning point."
"We are now determined more than ever to preserve Idlib’s de-escalation status.”
Syria’s Defense Ministry said insurgents were using Turkey-supplied portable surface-to-air missiles to attack Syrian and Russian aircraft.
It did not elaborate.
Earlier this month, Turkish-backed opposition fighters shot down two helicopter gunships belonging to the Syrian military.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group, said opposition fighters seized the town of Saraqeb after intense bombardment by Turkish troops.
Turkey and Russia support opposite sides in Syria’s brutal civil war, with Ankara backing the opposition and Moscow backing Assad.
Saraqeb’s loss is a big setback for Assad.
It sits on the strategic M5 highway linking the northern city of Aleppo with the capital, Damascus.
Syrian troops recaptured the last rebel-controlled section of the M5 earlier this month.
Officials had hailed the reopening of the motorway as a major victory in the nine-year conflict.
The Syrian government’s military campaign to recapture Idlib province has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe and the war’s largest single wave of displacement.
According to the United Nations, almost 950,000 civilians have been displaced since early December, and more than 300 have been killed.
Most have fled farther north to safer areas near the Turkish border, overwhelming camps already crowded with refugees in cold winter weather.
From inside Saraqeb, activist Taher al-Omar said the town is now under opposition control.
He posted a video with a fighter saying the government forces “ran away like rats.”
The Observatory said more than 60 fighters were killed on both sides since Wednesday, adding that government forces launched a counteroffensive later Thursday under the cover of Russian airstrikes to try retake the town.
Syrian state media reported intense clashes near Saraqeb, saying insurgents sent suicide car bombs and that Turkish forces bombarded the area.
It said a small group of insurgents reached the highway to score a “propaganda stunt,” adding that “Syrian troops are dealing with them.”
State TV later Thursday confirmed that insurgents have cut the highway, adding that fighting is ongoing in the area.
The Observatory also reported on the more than 20 villages captured Thursday by the government.
It added that Syrian troops have now besieged another Turkish observation post in an area known as Sheer Maghar.
The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said government forces advancing from northern parts of Hama province met Thursday with forces moving from southern Idlib, bringing wide areas under Syrian army control.
If government forces now turn north, they can eventually reach another major highway known as the M4 that links Syria’s coastal region with the country’s west.
Assad has vowed to retake all of Syria.
Assad’s forces have captured dozens of villages over the past few days, including major rebel strongholds.
However, Erdogan said Thursday that, “The situation in Idlib has turned in our favor.”
Speaking at the opening of a political academy in the capital, Ankara, he said the Syrian government had sustained “huge” losses.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry on Thursday said two Turkish soldiers were killed in Syria in an air attack the previous day, and that two others were wounded.
The Observatory reported that Syrian government warplanes struck a Turkish military post in the Jabal al-Zawiya region on Thursday, killing three soldiers and wounding others.
In his speech, Erdogan referred to “three martyrs.”
However, he offset these casualties against the losses of Syrian government forces.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/airst ... latestnews
"Airstrike in northern Syria kills at least 22 Turkish soldiers"
By Associated Press
Published: Feb 27, 2020 6:05 p.m. ET
BEIRUT — Nearly two dozen Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike by Syrian government forces in northeast Syria, a Turkish official said Friday.
The deaths mark a serious escalation in the direct conflict between Turkish and Russia-backed Syrian forces that has been waged since early February.
Rahmi Dogan, the governor of Turkey’s Hatay province bordering Syria’s Idlib region, said 22 troops were killed and others were seriously wounded in the attack late Thursday.
In addition to three Turkish soldiers killed in Idlib earlier Thursday, the casualties mark the largest death toll for Turkey in a single day since Ankara first intervened in Syria in 2016.
At least 43 have now been killed in Idlib since the start of February.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was holding an emergency security meeting in Ankara, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Meanwhile Turkish Foreign Minister Mevult Cavusoglu spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg by telephone.
The airstrike came after a Russian delegation spent two days in Ankara for talks with Turkish officials on the situation in Idlib, where a Syrian government offensive has sent hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing towards the Turkish border.
The offensive has also engulfed a many of the 12 military observation posts Turkey has in Idlib.
The airstrike came after Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters retook a strategic northwestern town from government forces on Thursday, opposition activists said, cutting a key highway just days after the government reopened it for the first time since 2012.
Despite losing the town of Saraqeb, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces made major gains to the south.
Assad now controls almost the entire southern part of Idlib province after capturing more than 20 villages Thursday, state media and opposition activists said.
It’s part of a weekslong campaign backed by Russian air power into Syria’s last rebel stronghold.
Violence in Idlib province also left three more Turkish soldiers dead, according to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raising the number of Turkish troops killed in Syria this month to 21.
Thousands of Turkish soldiers are deployed inside rebel-controlled areas of Idlib province, which is dominated by al-Qaida-linked militants.
Turkey’s U.N. Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu told the Security Council on Thursday that Turkey was committed to upholding a fragile cease-fire agreement that Turkey and Russia reached on Idlib in 2018.
The Syrian government troops’ “deliberate attacks on our forces has been a turning point."
"We are now determined more than ever to preserve Idlib’s de-escalation status.”
Syria’s Defense Ministry said insurgents were using Turkey-supplied portable surface-to-air missiles to attack Syrian and Russian aircraft.
It did not elaborate.
Earlier this month, Turkish-backed opposition fighters shot down two helicopter gunships belonging to the Syrian military.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group, said opposition fighters seized the town of Saraqeb after intense bombardment by Turkish troops.
Turkey and Russia support opposite sides in Syria’s brutal civil war, with Ankara backing the opposition and Moscow backing Assad.
Saraqeb’s loss is a big setback for Assad.
It sits on the strategic M5 highway linking the northern city of Aleppo with the capital, Damascus.
Syrian troops recaptured the last rebel-controlled section of the M5 earlier this month.
Officials had hailed the reopening of the motorway as a major victory in the nine-year conflict.
The Syrian government’s military campaign to recapture Idlib province has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe and the war’s largest single wave of displacement.
According to the United Nations, almost 950,000 civilians have been displaced since early December, and more than 300 have been killed.
Most have fled farther north to safer areas near the Turkish border, overwhelming camps already crowded with refugees in cold winter weather.
From inside Saraqeb, activist Taher al-Omar said the town is now under opposition control.
He posted a video with a fighter saying the government forces “ran away like rats.”
The Observatory said more than 60 fighters were killed on both sides since Wednesday, adding that government forces launched a counteroffensive later Thursday under the cover of Russian airstrikes to try retake the town.
Syrian state media reported intense clashes near Saraqeb, saying insurgents sent suicide car bombs and that Turkish forces bombarded the area.
It said a small group of insurgents reached the highway to score a “propaganda stunt,” adding that “Syrian troops are dealing with them.”
State TV later Thursday confirmed that insurgents have cut the highway, adding that fighting is ongoing in the area.
The Observatory also reported on the more than 20 villages captured Thursday by the government.
It added that Syrian troops have now besieged another Turkish observation post in an area known as Sheer Maghar.
The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said government forces advancing from northern parts of Hama province met Thursday with forces moving from southern Idlib, bringing wide areas under Syrian army control.
If government forces now turn north, they can eventually reach another major highway known as the M4 that links Syria’s coastal region with the country’s west.
Assad has vowed to retake all of Syria.
Assad’s forces have captured dozens of villages over the past few days, including major rebel strongholds.
However, Erdogan said Thursday that, “The situation in Idlib has turned in our favor.”
Speaking at the opening of a political academy in the capital, Ankara, he said the Syrian government had sustained “huge” losses.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry on Thursday said two Turkish soldiers were killed in Syria in an air attack the previous day, and that two others were wounded.
The Observatory reported that Syrian government warplanes struck a Turkish military post in the Jabal al-Zawiya region on Thursday, killing three soldiers and wounding others.
In his speech, Erdogan referred to “three martyrs.”
However, he offset these casualties against the losses of Syrian government forces.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/airst ... latestnews
Re: TURKEY
THE LAS VEGAS SUN
"Syria says U.S. forces clash with Syrian troops, killing 1"
Published Monday, Aug. 17, 2020 | 8 a.m.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — U.S. forces clashed with Syrian troops in the northeast on Monday, killing at least one soldier and wounding two others, state media said, while the U.S. military said it responded to small arms fire near a Syrian checkpoint.
Tensions have been rising in northeastern Syria in recent months as the Syrian military has cut off American access to several areas.
State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed Syrian military official as saying a U.S. helicopter gunship attacked an army checkpoint in the village of Tal Dahab, near the town of Qamishli, at around 9:45 a.m. (0645 GMT).
The official said a Syrian soldier was killed and two others were wounded.
SANA said the Syrian army prevented an American convoy from passing through.
The U.S. military said a joint force made up of U.S.-led coalition forces and allied Syrian Kurdish-led fighters encountered a Syrian army checkpoint after carrying out a patrol against the Islamic State group.
It said they were granted safe passage.
It said the patrol then came under small arms fire from the vicinity of the checkpoint and returned fire.
There were no casualties among U.S.-led coalition forces or the Kurdish-led fighters, the statement said.
It denied a helicopter gunship attacked the Syrian army checkpoint.
Hundreds of U.S. troops are stationed in northeastern Syria, working with their local partners from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to combat the Islamic State group.
Elsewhere in Syria, a Turkish military vehicle was “slightly damaged” during an attack Monday on Turkish troops who were on a joint patrol with Russian counterparts in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, Turkey’s military said.
Turkey and Russia have been conducting joint patrols of the region as part of a cease-fire agreement they reached in March.
Russia is a close ally of the Syrian government, while Turkey supports the armed Syrian opposition.
The attack occurred during the 25th such patrol, the military reported in a statement posted on Twitter.
The statement said Turkish troops had responded to the attack and that an operation was continuing.
____
Associated Press write Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara, Turkey.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2020/aug/1 ... oops-kill/
"Syria says U.S. forces clash with Syrian troops, killing 1"
Published Monday, Aug. 17, 2020 | 8 a.m.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — U.S. forces clashed with Syrian troops in the northeast on Monday, killing at least one soldier and wounding two others, state media said, while the U.S. military said it responded to small arms fire near a Syrian checkpoint.
Tensions have been rising in northeastern Syria in recent months as the Syrian military has cut off American access to several areas.
State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed Syrian military official as saying a U.S. helicopter gunship attacked an army checkpoint in the village of Tal Dahab, near the town of Qamishli, at around 9:45 a.m. (0645 GMT).
The official said a Syrian soldier was killed and two others were wounded.
SANA said the Syrian army prevented an American convoy from passing through.
The U.S. military said a joint force made up of U.S.-led coalition forces and allied Syrian Kurdish-led fighters encountered a Syrian army checkpoint after carrying out a patrol against the Islamic State group.
It said they were granted safe passage.
It said the patrol then came under small arms fire from the vicinity of the checkpoint and returned fire.
There were no casualties among U.S.-led coalition forces or the Kurdish-led fighters, the statement said.
It denied a helicopter gunship attacked the Syrian army checkpoint.
Hundreds of U.S. troops are stationed in northeastern Syria, working with their local partners from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to combat the Islamic State group.
Elsewhere in Syria, a Turkish military vehicle was “slightly damaged” during an attack Monday on Turkish troops who were on a joint patrol with Russian counterparts in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, Turkey’s military said.
Turkey and Russia have been conducting joint patrols of the region as part of a cease-fire agreement they reached in March.
Russia is a close ally of the Syrian government, while Turkey supports the armed Syrian opposition.
The attack occurred during the 25th such patrol, the military reported in a statement posted on Twitter.
The statement said Turkish troops had responded to the attack and that an operation was continuing.
____
Associated Press write Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara, Turkey.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2020/aug/1 ... oops-kill/
Re: TURKEY
REUTERS
"Analysis: Turkey steps into abyss with latest central bank boss ousting"
By Marc Jones, Tom Arnold
March 22, 2021
LONDON (Reuters) - Turkey may have lost the faith of investors long weary of a cycle of unorthodox policies, analysts said, after President Tayyip Erdogan’s shock sacking of its central bank chief.
Erdogan’s decision to replace the hawkish Naci Agbal with Sahap Kavcioglu, a like-minded critic of high interest rates, saw the lira slump nearly 10% and yields on Ankara’s government bonds soar on Monday.
Societe Generale said it had taken Turkey “beyond the point of no return” in terms of credibility and was likely to send Turks rushing to convert lira into dollars or euros again.
Finance Minister Lutfi Elvan said on Monday that Turkey was determined to stick to free-market rules and a free-floating currency regime, but after ‘soft’ forms of capital controls in recent years some investors are wary.
“We will NEVER turn bullish on TRY (the lira) as long as Erdogan is effectively running the central bank,” Nordea’s global chief strategist Andreas Steno Larsen tweeted.
Although Erdogan, who has now sacked three central bank governors in two years, has repeatedly railed against higher interest rate as a means of curbing double-digit inflation, his latest move still left investors in shock.
Investment banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank all warned of a rough ride ahead and Europe’s largest fund manager Amundi said it would not be surprised to see interest rates slashed next month.
The Turkish central bank has not commented beyond a statement announcing Kavcioglu’s appointment in which it said its main objective was to achieve “a permanent fall in inflation” to foster macroeconomic stability.
Agbal had won widespread praise in markets for aggressively raising Turkish interest rates from 10.25% to 19% since taking over in November, the highest of any major world economy.
His removal on Saturday came after the bank had hiked rates by a larger-than-expected 200 basis points last week, a move that had lifted the Turkish lira more than 3%.
CURRENCY CRISIS
Kavcioglu, a former member of parliament for Erdogan’s ruling AK party, said during a call with bankers on Sunday that he planned no immediate policy change and that any move would depend on inflation, a source familiar with the call said.
“If this guy hasn’t been hired to cut rates then what is he doing there,” Aberdeen Standard Investments portfolio manager Kieran Curtis said of the change, adding that alongside Erdogan’s decision to pull out of an international accord designed to protect women, it was an easy call to sell the lira.
Economists say political influence in monetary policy has compounded Turkey’s credit-fuelled, boom-bust economy and helped keep inflation in double digits for most of the last four years.
Monday’s 9% drop was the lira’s worst daily plunge since 2018.
It has lost half its value since then and international investors now own just 5% of Turkey’s lira government bonds compared to roughly 25% in 2013.
During his short tenure, Agbal helped re-engage investors, driving a 18% rally in the lira and arresting the trend of dollarization in the economy, where citizens and firms swap their lira into dollars to preserve the value of their money.
Data this month showed Turkish residents’ FX deposits held at local banks had dipped to $230 billion, down from the peak of $236 billion in January.
A major worry among investors though is that there are not much in the way of currency reserves left at the central bank.
Once various ‘swap’ positions are taken into account, Societe Generale and others have calculated that net foreign exchange reserves are negative to the tune of around $40 billion.
Many analysts point to the market interventions worth an estimated $120 billion that prevailed under former finance minister and Erdogan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak.
“If mishandled, the CBRT changes can prompt a fresh currency and balance of payments crisis, with concern over short-term debt roll-over and very limited FX reserves,” Nick Eisinger, principal for fixed income emerging markets at Vanguard, said.
Turkey faces short-term external financing requirements of more than $200 billion in 2021, more than 20% of GDP, according to an estimate by MUFG’s Ehsan Khoman.
“It’s a risky business when you have no currency reserves,” Saxo’s head of FX strategy John Hardy said.
“If they move rates (lower) again and if the lira moves again, then my chief concern would be that you get some form of capital controls.”
Analysts say there is a range of possible strategies to defend the lira, including tighter limits on currency swaps or even more formal controls that crimp the amount of money that can move out the country.
“Turkey may soon be headed toward another currency crisis,” Societe Generale’s Phoenix Kalen said.
There is a “battle royale ahead”.
Additional reporting by Karin Strohecker and Tom Arnold in London; Additional graphics by Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; Editing by Alexander Smith
https://www.reuters.com/article/turkey- ... SL8N2LK4LU
"Analysis: Turkey steps into abyss with latest central bank boss ousting"
By Marc Jones, Tom Arnold
March 22, 2021
LONDON (Reuters) - Turkey may have lost the faith of investors long weary of a cycle of unorthodox policies, analysts said, after President Tayyip Erdogan’s shock sacking of its central bank chief.
Erdogan’s decision to replace the hawkish Naci Agbal with Sahap Kavcioglu, a like-minded critic of high interest rates, saw the lira slump nearly 10% and yields on Ankara’s government bonds soar on Monday.
Societe Generale said it had taken Turkey “beyond the point of no return” in terms of credibility and was likely to send Turks rushing to convert lira into dollars or euros again.
Finance Minister Lutfi Elvan said on Monday that Turkey was determined to stick to free-market rules and a free-floating currency regime, but after ‘soft’ forms of capital controls in recent years some investors are wary.
“We will NEVER turn bullish on TRY (the lira) as long as Erdogan is effectively running the central bank,” Nordea’s global chief strategist Andreas Steno Larsen tweeted.
Although Erdogan, who has now sacked three central bank governors in two years, has repeatedly railed against higher interest rate as a means of curbing double-digit inflation, his latest move still left investors in shock.
Investment banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank all warned of a rough ride ahead and Europe’s largest fund manager Amundi said it would not be surprised to see interest rates slashed next month.
The Turkish central bank has not commented beyond a statement announcing Kavcioglu’s appointment in which it said its main objective was to achieve “a permanent fall in inflation” to foster macroeconomic stability.
Agbal had won widespread praise in markets for aggressively raising Turkish interest rates from 10.25% to 19% since taking over in November, the highest of any major world economy.
His removal on Saturday came after the bank had hiked rates by a larger-than-expected 200 basis points last week, a move that had lifted the Turkish lira more than 3%.
CURRENCY CRISIS
Kavcioglu, a former member of parliament for Erdogan’s ruling AK party, said during a call with bankers on Sunday that he planned no immediate policy change and that any move would depend on inflation, a source familiar with the call said.
“If this guy hasn’t been hired to cut rates then what is he doing there,” Aberdeen Standard Investments portfolio manager Kieran Curtis said of the change, adding that alongside Erdogan’s decision to pull out of an international accord designed to protect women, it was an easy call to sell the lira.
Economists say political influence in monetary policy has compounded Turkey’s credit-fuelled, boom-bust economy and helped keep inflation in double digits for most of the last four years.
Monday’s 9% drop was the lira’s worst daily plunge since 2018.
It has lost half its value since then and international investors now own just 5% of Turkey’s lira government bonds compared to roughly 25% in 2013.
During his short tenure, Agbal helped re-engage investors, driving a 18% rally in the lira and arresting the trend of dollarization in the economy, where citizens and firms swap their lira into dollars to preserve the value of their money.
Data this month showed Turkish residents’ FX deposits held at local banks had dipped to $230 billion, down from the peak of $236 billion in January.
A major worry among investors though is that there are not much in the way of currency reserves left at the central bank.
Once various ‘swap’ positions are taken into account, Societe Generale and others have calculated that net foreign exchange reserves are negative to the tune of around $40 billion.
Many analysts point to the market interventions worth an estimated $120 billion that prevailed under former finance minister and Erdogan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak.
“If mishandled, the CBRT changes can prompt a fresh currency and balance of payments crisis, with concern over short-term debt roll-over and very limited FX reserves,” Nick Eisinger, principal for fixed income emerging markets at Vanguard, said.
Turkey faces short-term external financing requirements of more than $200 billion in 2021, more than 20% of GDP, according to an estimate by MUFG’s Ehsan Khoman.
“It’s a risky business when you have no currency reserves,” Saxo’s head of FX strategy John Hardy said.
“If they move rates (lower) again and if the lira moves again, then my chief concern would be that you get some form of capital controls.”
Analysts say there is a range of possible strategies to defend the lira, including tighter limits on currency swaps or even more formal controls that crimp the amount of money that can move out the country.
“Turkey may soon be headed toward another currency crisis,” Societe Generale’s Phoenix Kalen said.
There is a “battle royale ahead”.
Additional reporting by Karin Strohecker and Tom Arnold in London; Additional graphics by Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; Editing by Alexander Smith
https://www.reuters.com/article/turkey- ... SL8N2LK4LU