Syria Superthread [merged]

[suffolkowner]

On the other hand it might be just the right time for a war against Russia; it might be a tad painful but we wouldn't lose. The outcome might be something like:

    1. A new European Russia, running from about the current borders with Finland, Latvia, etc down to Georgia and Eastwards to the Urals, aligned with Germany;

    2. A new "independent" Asian country in Eastern Siberia aligned with China; and

    3. A new country, between the Urals and Eastern Siberia of questionable alignment.

My guess is that war has to come, sooner or later; sooner seems preferable to me.

Seems like the perfect time for a non-Turkish army to move in and protect the ethnic Turks in Syria.
I mean Turkey's a s**t ally but at least their anti Russian roots go deep.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Elsewhere, another forum, someone's friend said that "Syria no longer exists," and I quipped something about it never having "existed," being an artefact of Sykes-Picot, etc. That was unfair: Syria, a real country, it did exist for 90ish years ... it was, indeed, a bit of an artificial construct but so is Canada, or America, come to that. The A big difference between successful Canada and failed (failing, anyway) Syria is that our dominant culture worshiped, for 500+ years, at the alter of institutions and, it turned out, institutions matter a whole helluva lot more than spirits and gods and assorted sky fairies and their shamans.

My perception ~ likely deeply flawed ~ is that the status quo ante in the Middle East is either:

    1. Hundreds of petty kingdoms ~ sheikdoms, or tribes or whatevers; or

    2. A caliphate.

I can see four candidates for caliph:

    1. A Sunni from Saudi Arabia ~ the guys funding IS**/Da'esh;

    2. A Shia from Iran;

    3. A Turk; or

    4. An Egyptian.

I have no idea which one might be either the winner or a good choice.

I'm really pleased to see the Russians engaged in Syria and Iraq. It is my belief that Russia is the only great power less likely to act in its rational self interest than is the USA.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I get that its a rule. I just don't understand the why. I also don't understand why we would expect all these other factions/cultures to be cognizant of the rule and to actually follow them. I mean if you're in a APC that's disabled are you given the opportunity to surrender? Can you shoot paratroopers in the air?

You can shoot paratroopers in the air until your heart is content, even if the plane is on fire and they're bailing out. If you shoot the pilots you're violating the Geneva conventions.

Why? Because years ago someone decided that it should be a rule.
Do we expect everyone to abide by the rules? No, but we do (or are supposed to) whether other countries do or don't.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

My perception ~ likely deeply flawed ~ is that the status quo ante in the Middle East is either:

    1. Hundreds of petty kingdoms ~ sheikdoms, or tribes or whatevers; or

    2. A caliphate.

The last Caliphate was the Ottoman Empire, and funny enough, it worked because the Porte (seat of the Emperor's administration of the Caliphate) basically loosely held the empire together through bribing, family ties, arranged marriages, or outright bullying of all the hundreds of "petty kingdoms, sheikhdoms and tribes", as the case may be, on a case-by-case basis.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

On the other hand it might be just the right time for a war against Russia; it might be a tad painful but we wouldn't lose. The outcome might be something like:

    1. A new European Russia, running from about the current borders with Finland, Latvia, etc down to Georgia and Eastwards to the Urals, aligned with Germany;

    2. A new "independent" Asian country in Eastern Siberia aligned with China; and

    3. A new country, between the Urals and Eastern Siberia of questionable alignment.

My guess is that war has to come, sooner or later; sooner seems preferable to me.

This is exactly what Halford Mackinder said you shouldn't do.  If Germany and Russia ever got permanently in bed with each other, watch out!

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is exactly what Halford Mackinder said you shouldn't do.  If Germany and Russia ever got permanently in bed with each other, watch out!

Yes, but he meant Russia from Europe to the Pacific ~ that HUGE hinterland. My guess is that the desired end state is a rump European Russia and two or three (or more) Asian states in what is now Russia East of the Urals.

 

[dimsum]

You can shoot paratroopers in the air until your heart is content, even if the plane is on fire and they're bailing out. If you shoot the pilots you're violating the Geneva conventions.

Why? Because years ago someone decided that it should be a rule.
Do we expect everyone to abide by the rules? No, but we do (or are supposed to) whether other countries do or don't.

My WAG (wild-ass guess) is that a paratrooper is enroute to his/her fighting position and will advance to the enemy once down, whereas aircrew are in survival mode once they bail out of their aircraft and are essentially out of the fight (except with whatever small arms they have with their survival gear). 

 

[tomahawk6]

At the link is audio of the Turkish intercept and a press conference of the surviving pilot.The Turks contend they didnt know the aircraft was Russian.The Russian pilot says there was no warning.The audio shows that the pilot wasnt exactly truthful.I suspect the Turks werent either.Everyone is trying to play the CYA game.

 

[Journeyman]

.... a paratrooper is enroute to his/her fighting position and will advance to the enemy once down, whereas aircrew are searching for a 4-star hotel or better

Your autocorrect must have missed that.

 

[tomahawk6]

Short article that suggests the Russian incursion was on purpose and the only way the aircraft could strike their Turkmen target.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-lilly/russia-premeditated-incur_b_8660792.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

 

[dimsum]

Your autocorrect must have missed that.

4-star?  Pshaw - only because 5-star ones were full.

 

[CougarKing]

Major update: Turkey halts its air campaign against ISIS. Perhaps this means the Kurds targeted by Turkey will now get some breathing room?

Aviationist

The Turkish Air Force suspends flights over Syria amid crisis with Russia over Su-24 downing
Nov 27 2015 -
By David Cenciotti
The Turkish Air Force is no longer supporting the air war on ISIS.

According to  Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper, the Turkish Air Force has suspended the missions over Syria of its aircraft supporting the international air campaign against ISIS.

This is the effect of the unprecedented diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Moscow sparked by the downing of the Russian Su-24 Fencer bomber by a TuAF F-16 after the alleged and controversial violation of the Turkish airspace on Nov. 24.

According to the Turkish authorities, the Su-24 violated Ankara’s airspace (for 17 seconds) and did not respond to 10 warnings in 5 minutes, radioed by a TuAF GCI (Ground Controlled Intercept) station while the aircraft, along with another one of the same type approached the border. Russian authorities deny this report and claim no warning was issued by the Turkish and no violation occurred at all.

(...SNIPPPED)

 

[jollyjacktar]

Bruce MacKinnin cartoon Turkey playing Chicken with Russia

;D

 

[YZT580]

Major update: Turkey halts its air campaign against ISIS. Perhaps this means the Kurds targeted by Turkey will now get some breathing room?

Aviationist

Instead they will have to watch for incoming from the other direction.  Russia considers all combatants other than the Syrian army to be terrorists.

 

[The Bread Guy]

A somewhat more detailed RUS Info-machine account of the shoot-down (also downloadable here if the previous link doesn't work), including a couple of maps (attached) ....

Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces presents facts of the attack on the Russian Su-24M aircraft carried out by the Turkish F-16 fighter in the sky over Syria on November 24

In the course of appearance of different versions concerning circumstances of the attack on the Russian Su-24M aircraft carried out by the Turkish F-16 fighter in the sky over Syria on November 24, the Russian Defence Ministry presents facts of this situation unprecedented in its disloyalty.

The accident happened on November 24. Combat loss of the Su-24M, tail number 83, was caused by fire engagement.

At 9.15 (MSK) it was assigned to carry out strike near Kepir-Motlu-Zahiya located in the north of Syria.

This task was assigned to two Su-24M aircraft crews, including one of pilot Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Peshkov and Captain Konstantin Murakhtin (aircraft number 83, with combat payload four OFAB-250-270 air bombs).

The crews were assigned to conduct combat air patrol near Maarrat al-Numan at flight levels of 5800 m and 5650 m correspondetly.

The aircraft took off from the Hmeymim airbase at 9:42.

At 9:52, the Su-24M entered detection zone of the Turkish Air Force radar means and was under their coverage in the course of 34 minutes.

After 20 minutes passed since the crew had entered its area of responsibility, the Command centre of the Hmeymim airbase ordered it to eliminate militants in the area.

The crews bombed two assigned targets and turned to the left to make another approach for destruction of two remaining targets.

As it was carrying out an airstrike at the target located 5.5 km to the south of the Turkish border, at 10:24 the crew led by Lieutenant Colonel Peshkov O.A. launched bombs at the target and was then downed by an "air-to-air" missile from an F-16 fighter of the Turkish Air Force, which had performed take-off from the Diyarbakir airfield of the 8th airbase located in the territory Turkey.

During the analysis of video air situation display provided by the Command Centre of the Syrian Air Force and Air Defence, an aerial target was spotted, moving from Turkey in the direction of the state border at the speed of 810 kmph  and with the heading of 190 degrees.

After the Turkish fighter approached the Su-24M at a range equal to the range of a missile launch (equal to 5-7 km, which proves that the F-16 was in the Syrian air space), it quickly maneuvered to the right, lowered, and disappeared from the display of the air situation display.

According to the objective monitoring data received from the air defence means, while the Russian bomber did not cross the Turkish border.

The crew of the leading aircraft confirms the missile launch. After the launch and a left turn for heading 130 degrees, they observed a flash and a tail of white smoke, which he reported to the flight control officer.

At 10:25, the flight control officer registered that the mark from the Su-24M aircraft disappeared from the radars. The further requests and the requests of the leader crew of the Lieutenant Colonel Peshkov remained without answer.

The estimated time of arrival of an F-16 aircraft from the military airfield Dyabakyr from the stand-by position on the ground to the possible place of missile launch constitutes 46 minutes (15 minutes for preparation and take-off, 31 minutes - flight time needed to arrive at the firing point).

Thus, interception of a Su-24M aircraft from the stand-by position on the ground from the military airfield Dyabakyr is impossible as the necessary time for approaching the target exceeds the minimum time needed for attack by 12 minutes.

Objective monitoring data received from the Syrian radar stations confirmed the presence of two F-16’s in the duty zone from 9:11 till 10:26 min (for 1 h 15 min) at the altitude of 2400 metres, that shows that the operation was planned beforehand and the fighters were ready to attack from the air ambush over the territory of Turkey.

It is to be mentioned that the fighter aircraft stopped maneuvering in the duty zone an headed rapidly to the offset point 1 minute and 40 seconds before the maximum approach of the Su-24M aircraft to the Syrian-Turkish border. The method the F-16 aircraft entered the engagement zone (not by the curve of pursuit) shows that it was vectored from the ground.

Actions of the Turkish aircraft after launching of missiles over the territory of Syria ­- the wind-down turn with loss of altitude and going under the lower range line of the air defence means - also speaks for the fact that the perfidious crew's actions were planned beforehand.

Objective monitoring data from the Hmeymim airbase and the leader aircraft did not register any request made by the crew of the Turkish aircraft to the Russian pilots on the pre-arranged frequency.

The readiness of the Turkish media to cover this incident is also surprising.

The strike with the "air-to-air" missile was made by a pilot of the F-16 aircraft of the Turkish Air Force at 10:24 and just in an hour and a half the video showing the falling warplane was published on the YouTube video hosting site by the Turkish private television company. The angle of the footage allows to define the possible place of recording. It is situated in the area controlled by the radical terrorist groupings consisting of people from the North Caucasus and the former republics of the USSR. The operator had known in advance the time and place, which would be the best for recording the exclusive footage.

Rapid appearance of militants' groups in the landing area and publication of the video in the Internet just 1.5 hours after the accident show that the terrorists had been informed in advance about the prepared provocation for its videoing and publication of the materials in social media on the Internet.

All these facts clearly show the earlier preparation for downing of the aircraft and the coverage of those events using the Turkish Air Force, illegal armed groups and Turkish information agencies along with active support of the media.

Since the signing of the mutual understanding memorandum between the Russian Ministry of Defence and the Department of Defence of the USA on October 23, 2015, the Command of the Russian air group has undeviatingly taken all measures to prevent incidents between Russian military aircraft and warplanes belonging to the Coalition countries.

In accordance with these agreements, the Russian Air Force Command Centre at the Hmeymim airbase had informed representatives of the US Air Force concerning the engagement areas and echelons of a pair of Russian Su-24M bombers in advance.

That is why statements made by different officials from Turkey concerning that they had not identified the Russian aircraft are, at least, confusing.

Moreover, the Turkish military command has violated all articles and dispositions of the international law that regulates defence of the state border in the air space.

It is to be stressed that there were neither apologies, nor offers of help in positioning and evacuation of the downed crew received from the Turkish party after the tragedy happened.

In conclusion, it is necessary to touch upon the subject of the search-and-rescue operation conducted to evacuate the navigator, Captain Konstantin Murakhtin from the landing location .

First of all, the Command expresses its gratitude to all the members of the operation for their accurate, coordinated work, their tenacity and composure shown in the most difficult situation at night, surrounded by terrorists. Their work helped to bring the ejected navigator to the base.

As soon as Captain Murakhtin was safe, massive airstrikes were made by Russian aircraft and the Syrian rocket artillery on the area occupied by terrorists who had been actively searching for him.

In conclusion, it must be said that the Aerospace Forces Command is proud of its pilots, technicians, commanders, and maintenance personnel, which carry out combat missions to fight international terrorism in Syria.

The Command wishes to express its deepest condolences to the families of Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Peshkov and Private Alexander Pozynich, who lost his life rescuing the crew.

The families of the servicemen will not be left on their own and they will receive all required assistance.

 

[a_majoor]

Some more analysis of the incident and possible fallout:

http://observer.com/2015/12/whats-next-in-the-terrifying-unraveling-russo-turkish-crisis/

What’s Next in the Terrifying, Unraveling Russo-Turkish Crisis
Sometimes political leaders do insanely stupid things, with horrific consequences for millions
By John R. Schindler • 12/01/15 1:14pm

The downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber jet on November 24 by a Turkish F-16 fighter on the Turkish-Syrian border, where the two air forces have been playing high-speed cat-and-mouse games for months, opened a new and dangerous phase in an international crisis that’s long been brewing on low-boil.

Although President Recep Erdoğan’s Turkey and President Vladimir Putin’s Russia are ancestral foes, in recent years the countries had enjoyed a cordial relationship with substantial trade between them and significant alignments on many security issues, notwithstanding the former’s NATO membership going back to the early Cold War. As the Middle East has gone up in flames since the Arab Spring, a Russo-Turkish partnership might have gone a long way in preventing wider conflagration.

Alas, any regional cooperation between Ankara and Moscow has broken up on Syrian rocks, with the two countries pursuing contrary goals in that sad country, which has experienced the torments of hell since its civil war began in spring 2011. While Mr. Putin has backed its proxy—the Assad dictatorship in Damascus—to the hilt, Mr. Erdoğan has quietly supported anti-Assad guerrilla groups with equal determination.

Overt Russian military intervention in the Syrian conflict in late September placed Moscow and Ankara on a collision course, as was obvious to clear-eyed observers. For Turkey, exerting some control over neighboring Syria, particularly its war-torn north, is a vital national security interest, and Ankara made clear it did not appreciate Russian games there. Here, Mr. Putin’s customary bull-in-china-shop methods in international relations were destined to result in a clash.

All that can be said for certain is that a Turkish Air Force F-16 shot down the Russian Air Force Su-24 a little over a week ago, killing the pilot and wounding the second crewman; another Russian serviceman was killed by Syrian rebels during search and rescue efforts. Ankara claims that the Russians briefly entered their airspace, something that Moscow vehemently denies. Similarly, Turkish assertions that they gave the wayward bomber multiple warnings have been dismissed as lies—after-the-fact excuses—by the Russian defense ministry.

The Pentagon has affirmed the Turkish narrative, broadly speaking, yet it’s evident that the Obama administration is displeased with Ankara over the shoot-down. It’s not normal for NATO fighters to open fire out of the blue at intruding Russian military aircraft, something which has been happening with mounting frequency of late. Instead, NATO fighters are supposed to intercept the intruder, making mutual visual sightings, at which point the Russians usually head the other way. None of that seems to have happened on November 24.

It’s not every day you get to see leaders of major countries with large militaries acting like petulant teenagers on the world stage.

In fairness to the Turks, the Russian Air Force had been playing dangerous games in that border region for weeks leading up to the incident, bombing the locals, who are backed by Ankara, and goading the Turks into action. In addition, the Su-24 is frequently used for electronic warfare missions, so it cannot be ruled out that the Russians were jamming or spoofing frequencies in the area, causing confusion on the Turkish side—a deadly confusion, as it turned out.

This is where a dispassionate international investigation would help to defuse tensions, but it’s unlikely either side will support that. As with the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines 17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, almost certainly by Russian-controlled forces, the Kremlin has responded to this incident with barrages of propaganda, some plausible, some downright absurd.

Some of this has come directly from Mr. Putin himself, who publicly accused Mr. Erdoğan of supporting the Islamic State, the notorious ISIS, including personal profiteering off the illegal sale of ISIS oil through Turkey. Adding fuel to the fire, Moscow sources have asserted that the shoot-down, which was “really” done to protect the “secret” of illicit ISIS oil shipments through Turkey, was done with the personal approval of President Obama. This is more of the noxious Kremlin agitprop that this White House bizarrely has chosen to do nothing to counter, as I recently explained.

Inconveniently for Ankara, at least some of Putin’s accusations are true. Although only Kremlin Trolls believe Mr. Obama had anything to do with the shoot-down, clandestine Turkish support for ISIS in the Syrian war isn’t a figment of Moscow’s imagination. Reports of oil profiteering in Ankara, including from ISIS, have circulated widely among Western intelligence agencies in recent years, while Mr. Erdoğan’s personal corruption is well known.

However, Russian accusations against Turkey ultimately fall flat, not least because Western intelligence has also reported about Russian profiteering from illegal ISIS oil sales, while questionable Kremlin spy games with various jihadists over the years, including Al-Qa’ida, are a matter of record. While Mr. Putin’s inflammatory accusations are not wholly fabricated, his own regime has done much the same.

Ankara has reacted to all this in an equally juvenile fashion. Mr. Putin’s allegations of profiteering have resulted in Mr. Erdoğan stating he will resign if the ISIS oil story proves true, while demanding that Mr. Putin resign if not. It’s not every day you get to see the leaders of major countries with large militaries acting like petulant teenagers on the world stage.

Neither country shows any desire to step back from confrontation, which ought to alarm everyone.

Russia and Ankara have shifted more military forces to the Syrian tinderbox—the former has moved in cutting-edge S-400 air defense missiles while the latter has deployed brigade’s worth of tanks to the border—which does nothing to stifle the crisis. Moscow’s aggressive trade sanctions against Turkey over the shoot-down will cause pain to both countries, while demonstrating that this incident will not be allowed to go away by the Kremlin.

Mr. Erdoğan’s suggestion of a meeting between the leaders to resolve the crisis was rudely dismissed by Moscow, leading to the Turkish prime minister stating his country will never apologize for defending their sovereignty. At the moment, neither country shows any desire to step back from confrontation, which ought to alarm everyone.

No small part of this mess has been caused by the essential similarities of both leaders. Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdoğan are charismatic strongmen with deep nationalist credentials. They have successfully employed faith mixed with chauvinism to handsome political effect, including nostalgia for lost imperial glory that rankles and scares their neighbors. They are popular with many citizens, who credit them with big economic advances among average people. Their political foes have fled the country in fear, while dissenting journalists and activists get arrested or killed in “mysterious,” never-solved crimes. Above all, they have used quasi-democratic ends to establish very un-democratic regimes, personally profiting in the process. Neither man has any history of backing down in the hour of crisis.

If all this sounds alarming, it should. It ought to be noted that neither Mr. Putin nor Mr. Erdoğan has crossed the point of no return yet: for the former, that would be cutting off Turkey’s natural gas shipments as winter sets in, while for the latter the shutting of the Bophorus to Russian ships, as it is permitted under the Montreux Convention of 1936, would have a similar effect, i.e. tantamount to a declaration of war. However, the lack of any signs of crisis de-escalation yet ought to raise concerns.

Moscow must understand it cannot bully a NATO member without consequences.

In Mr. Erdoğan, Mr. Putin has encountered a foe whose congenital response to the Kremlin strongman’s usual foreign policy playbook of tantrums and threats will be pushback rather than backing down. This matters because Turkey is a key member of NATO and it possesses a large and competent military—though it lacks the several thousand nuclear weapons Mr. Putin controls. Alarming signs are not difficult to detect. Demands in Moscow that Turkey return Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church, which fell to the Ottomans in 1453 when Constantinople—now Istanbul—at last was taken by the Turks after centuries of effort, are sure to inflame passions among history-minded Turks of an Islamist bent like Mr. Erdoğan.

Falling back on militant faith and historical grievance in a crisis is seldom an encouraging sign, and NATO needs to make it abundantly clear to Ankara that Article 5, the Alliance’s collective defense clause, does not apply if Turkey goads Russia into an avoidable war. That said, Moscow must understand that it cannot bully a NATO member without consequences either.

If all this—nationalist passions, dangerous border games, entangling alliances—sounds worryingly similar to 1914, it’s not altogether wide of the mark. As a historian I try to avoid bad analogies, which can be hazardous, but there are parallels with the disaster that befell Europe after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Then, as now, an aggressive Russia backed a troublesome proxy—then Serbia, now Syria—into an avoidable confrontation with a bigger neighbor, which led to a wider and unimaginably terrible war.

For decades it was fashionable to view the coming of World War I as some sort of unfortunate misunderstanding, which historically speaking is utter nonsense. In truth, both Vienna and Russia consciously opted for war, knowing full well that the outcome would be a major conflict: one that neither regime would survive, as it turned out. As I explain in my just-released book Fall of the Double Eagle, which details that fateful July and its awful outcome, sometimes political and military leaders, smart and educated people, do insanely stupid things, with horrific consequences for millions.

We can hope that Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdoğan, understanding what war—especially possible nuclear war—would mean, are more cautious than the leaders of 1914 were. At this hour, Mr. Obama is attempting to mediate this crisis before it gets out of hand, urging Turkey to step back a bit, and we should all wish him well, although there is reason to doubt Ankara takes Mr. Obama very seriously, given his dismal track record in the region. Whether reason prevails over passion in this hazardous misunderstanding between Russia and Turkey, who have waged numerous wars against each other over the centuries, remains to be seen.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Some more analysis of the incident and possible fallout:

http://observer.com/2015/12/whats-next-in-the-terrifying-unraveling-russo-turkish-crisis/

That's a good summary. In my opinion this part matters most:

    "No small part of this mess has been caused by the essential similarities of both leaders. Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdoğan are charismatic strongmen with deep nationalist credentials. They have successfully employed faith mixed with
      chauvinism to handsome political effect, including nostalgia for lost imperial glory that rankles and scares their neighbors. They are popular with many citizens, who credit them with big economic advances among average
      people. Their political foes have fled the country in fear, while dissenting journalists and activists get arrested or killed in “mysterious,” never-solved crimes. Above all, they have used quasi-democratic ends to establish very
      un-democratic regimes, personally profiting in the process. Neither man has any history of backing down in the hour of crisis.

      If all this sounds alarming, it should. It ought to be noted that neither Mr. Putin nor Mr. Erdoğan has crossed the point of no return yet: for the former, that would be cutting off Turkey’s natural gas shipments as winter sets in,
      while for the latter the shutting of the Bophorus to Russian ships, as it is permitted under the Montreux Convention of 1936, would have a similar effect, i.e. tantamount to a declaration of war. However, the lack of any signs
      of crisis de-escalation yet ought to raise concerns.

      Moscow must understand it cannot bully a NATO member without consequences.

      In Mr. Erdoğan, Mr. Putin has encountered a foe whose congenital response to the Kremlin strongman’s usual foreign policy playbook of tantrums and threats will be pushback rather than backing down. This matters because Turkey
      is a key member of NATO and it possesses a large and competent military—though it lacks the several thousand nuclear weapons Mr. Putin controls. Alarming signs are not difficult to detect. Demands in Moscow that Turkey
      return Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church, which fell to the Ottomans in 1453 when Constantinople—now Istanbul—at last was taken by the Turks after centuries of effort, are sure to inflame passions among history-minded
      Turks of an Islamist bent like Mr. Erdoğan."

As to Turkey "provoking" Russia into a war ~ I doubt that is Turkey's aim, but setting "boundaries' for Russia (and the USA, come to that) is. Turkey is, along with Iran, The Saudi-Gulf alliance (sort of) and Egypt, one of the four contenders for leadership of a new caliphate or a replacement of the Ottoman Empire.

 

[CougarKing]

Meanwhile the RAF begins air strikes against ISIS in Syria. Sigh. To think it'll be at least 2 more years before the HMS Queen Elizabeth and her air wing are complete and fully worked up to allow the RN to participate:

Reuters via Business Insider

British bombers launch first airstrikes in Syria against Islamic State oil fields

    Michele Kambas and William James, Reuters

UK Parliament to vote on expanded attacks on Islamic State
'Sometimes the greatest oratory can lead to the greatest mistakes'

British bombers made their first strikes on Islamic State in Syria on Thursday, hitting oil fields that Prime Minister David Cameron says are being used to fund attacks on the West.

Tornado bombers took off from the Royal Air Force Akrotiri air base in Cyprus just hours after British lawmakers voted 397-223 to support Cameron's plan for air strikes, a Reuters witness said. They returned to base safely several hours later.


(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

To think back in 2013 there was a furor in the Obama administration to directly target the Assad regime, which was seen as the main problem in the Syria Civil War before the rise of ISIS.

Defense News

Syria Accuses US-Led Coalition of Killing Regime Troops
Agence France-Presse 6:57 p.m. EST December 7, 2015

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria expressed outrage Monday after a suspected US-led coalition strike for the first time killed regime troops, but the coalition denied its warplanes hit an army base.

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Syria's foreign ministry condemned what it called a "flagrant aggression" that killed at least three soldiers late Sunday.

But a spokesman for the US-led coalition said its only strikes in the area on Sunday were about 55 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of the Syrian army base.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[McG]

To think back in 2013 there was a furor in the Obama administration to directly target the Assad regime, which was seen as the main problem in the Syria Civil War before the rise of ISIS.

Defense News

But the US says it was Russia that bombed Assad's guys:  http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-certain-that-russian-airstrike-killed-syrian-soldiers-official-says-1.2689467