Thursday, 18 Ramadan 1445 | 2024/03/28
Time now: (M.M.T)
Menu
Main menu
Main menu

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 News Right Now: Deadly Deception

Assalamu Alaikum and welcome to the podcast ‘Deadly Deception’.

This week saw Bashar Al Assad’s regime forces advance on Idlib province in a drive to recapture areas from the Mujahideen resistance fighters engaged in battle against Russian and state forces. The Russian and Turkish military clashed after Turkish forces in the area were hit by a regime airstrike and 33 Turkish soldiers were killed. President Erdogan made much of the incident, with public janaza and emotional rhetoric, designed to further incite nationalist feelings for Turkey, in justification of its involvement in Syria and its stance on the refugees.

However Turkey's role in Northern Syria is far more insidious than President Rajab would have us believe. Like Putin, he sees himself has grand designs on the role of Turkey as a leading regional player. The reality is that after Putin backed Erdogan in the attempted coup of 2016, the subsequent defence deal, energy pipelines, and significant agricultural dependence on Moscow has made Turkey more in need of Russia than the other way round. In Syria this relationship translates into one of ‘trade -offs’. Whereby Russia grants Turkey territorial concession in exchange for turning a blind eye to an Assad advance elsewhere.

It is a pattern that began in the summer of 2016 with Operation Euphrates Shield. Turkish forces and their rebel allies gained a zone of influence in return for ending their support of rebels in Aleppo so that Russia, Iran and Assad could conquer the city outright. It happened again in 2018 when Turkey needed Russian agreement to expand its zone and remove the YPG from Afrin. It was readily given, in exchange for Turkeys silence on Assad’s retaking of the Eastern third of Idlib’s deescalation zone. Also despite making noises of condemnation, Turkey did nothing to prevent Assad from recapturing three other de escalation zones in Ghouta, Rastan and Daraa later that year.

Despite Turkey’s sordid alliance with Syria and her allies, Turkish forces were quick to respond to attacks on all their positions. Turkish forces decimated the Syrian army in a series of drone, artillery and bomber attacks— via a fleet of drones and high-tech F-16s — into an operation that claimed at least two Syrian jet fighters, eight helicopters, 135 tanks, and 77 other armored vehicles, with as many as 2,500 Syrian troops killed according to the Turkish Defense Ministry.

This display of power proves only a fraction of Turkey’s military capability and acumen. Given the correct political will, Turkey could be a foreboding threat to the conspirators and enemies of the Muslim’s... commanding the agenda and securing lives.

The muted actions of Erdogan lack sincerity toward the Syrian people. Patting himself on the back for taking in 3.5 million, yet weaponizing their plight by using them as pawns to threaten racist Europeans. Closing borders into mainland Turkey to the civilians now fleeing from areas that were almost secured by the sincere resistance - so as to keep them in buffer zones, ready to be taken back by the Syrian regime - and so never ending their cycle of abandonment and trauma.

Erdogan’s main concern is to reduce Russian influence where possible, so he can facilitate America’s greater agenda in the region - which backs the Assad regime unequivocally, given how it only ever demands action from the regime by calling out any use of chemical weapons, yet enables it through ensuring the participation of the other players.

This way the US aims to restore the Syrian regime’s legitimacy, as is already evident from its return to the international community and the Geneva negotiations... and most likely eventually keep Bashar al Assad in a so-called post revolution Syria. All these insidious plans have left innocent people as victims time and again. At least 800,000 civilians fled Idlib, displaced and suffering the freezing temperatures, without anywhere near adequate food, clothing and shelter. Access to medical facilities is impossible when dozens of hospitals and shelters have been bombed; arriving at the Greek border, hundreds of refugees were told they would enter Europe after Erdogan’s childish threats.

Instead they received even more humiliating treatment. Boats being overturned, beatings, attempts at drowning them, and the torturous punishment of clothes removed in the freezing winter sleet. Despite all this, Turkey’s only concern is to uphold the wider Turkish - Russian relationship. The growing economic and security deals keep Turkey tied into a relationship that she can only ever be a junior partner in, and Turkey’s place in the Syria conflict will only ever be at the behest of America’s long term game plan.

May Allah swt pour onto the people of Syria, the wider Ummah and those who aim to make His swt’s word the highest in thought and deed... immense patience, in the promise of His swt’s all encompassing victory. Aameen.

Jazak Allahu Khayran

Ummah Voice Podcast

Media

Leave a comment

Make sure you enter the (*) required information where indicated. HTML code is not allowed.

back to top

Site Categories

Links

West

Muslim Lands

Muslim Lands