Syrian Hmong

[Dill]

Trump has handed over Isis fight in Syria, Turkey says, as offensive looms: Ankara says military will cross border ‘shortly’, and claims US president gave green light, contradicting US denials
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/09/turkey-trump-isis-fight-in-syria-offensive-looms

The Turkish government claimed that Donald Trump has handed it the leadership of the military campaign against Isis, and warned its forces would be crossing into Syria “shortly”.

Kurdish military leaders inside Syria said they were braced for the invasion and claimed there had been an Isis attack on its former stronghold of Raqqa. But reports from the city suggested the attack had been small scale.

However, it deepened Kurdish fears they would soon find themselves fighting on several fronts, against Turkey, Isis and possibly Iranian or Russian-backed units aligned with Damascus, all without US support.

A spokesman for the Turkish president, Recep Tayyap Erdoğan, justified the impending invasion by saying that Trump, in a telephone conversation with Erdoğan on Sunday, had handed Turkey the mantle of the counter-Isis battle that the US has been waging alongside Kurdish forces since late 2014.

Fahrettin Altun, Erdoğan’s communications director and one of his closest aides, suggested Trump had given the Turkish leader the green light for an invasion, contradicting denials from White House officials.

“During a phone call with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday, President Trump agreed to transfer the leadership of the counter-Islamic State campaign to Turkey,” Altun wrote in a commentary in the Washington Post published on Tuesday evening. “The Turkish military, together with the Free Syrian Army, will cross the Turkish-Syrian border shortly....

Early on Monday, US special forces near the Syrian-Turkish border were ordered to withdraw from their posts, to the surprise of Americans and Kurdish commanders. The Pentagon said on Tuesday the redeployment was necessary to avoid US troops being caught in the crossfire.

“Unfortunately, Turkey has chosen to act unilaterally,” Jonathan Hoffman, chief Pentagon spokesman, said. “As a result we have moved the US forces in northern Syria out of the path of potential Turkish incursion to ensure their safety. We have made no changes to our force presence in Syria at this time.”

There are also British and French special forces in the region and in the event of a major Turkish-Kurdish conflict the Guardian understands they would be tasked with the bolstering the security of camps where captured Isis fighters are being guarded by the Kurds.


....“Russia and Turkey have already discussed Turkey’s upcoming operation,” Jennifer Cafarella, research director at the Institute for the Study of War, said. “Russia supports it at least tacitly and may actually have entered into a general agreement with Turkey on the shape of what is to come in the north-east.”

Joseph Votel, who headed US central command until March and was instrumental in establishing the partnership with the Kurds, said the abrupt policy decision to seemingly abandon Washington’s Kurdish partners could not have come at a worse time.

In an article he co-written on the Defense One military news site, Votel said: “This policy abandonment threatens to undo five years’ worth of fighting against Isis and will severely damage American credibility and reliability in any future fights where we need strong allies.”