Syrian Civil War Developments

[tantalus]

thoughts of invasion aside....

Is there significant external military aid being provided to the rebels via the turkish border ? and is there a likely scope for increase due to recent events ? Obviously I have read already that the rebels are using the border to their advantage to escape syrian forces. Perhaps in this way, the rebellion can see material gain from the rising tensions with Turkey...

[Officer of Engineers]

Is there significant external military aid being provided to the rebels via the turkish border ?

I don't know if the rebels are being commanded by a Turkish General ... but they sure are now acting like it.

[NUS]

Paperwork routine: Turks force Syrian crew to sign 'emergency landing, no F-16s' statement - witnesses — RT

Passengers onboard the plane intercepted by Turkish jets said that security forces were making the crew and passengers sign fraudulent papers suggesting that the plane made an emergency landing and no Turkish military were involved in the incident.
Hours after Turkish authorities announced that the Syrian Airlines passenger plane intercepted by its F-16s was granted a departure clearance, the aircraft remained on the tarmac in darkness.
“Four people onboard have been beaten up, two crew and two passengers, as they tried to force them to sign documents,” Sherin Azis, a hostess on the plane, told RT by phone. “We don’t know what these papers are about. We are scared for the fate of the captain. He was taken away and threatened with arrest if he does not sign an emergency landing paper.”
Fatima al-Saman, a passenger and a mother of three, also told RT that the captain was being forced to sign a release stating that military planes were not involved and the plane just made an emergency landing.
“If we do not agree to these terms, they will take the captain kind of hostage,” al-Saman said. “They are threatening us. The captain has now returned and said that ‘either I sign the document that I made an emergency landing or they are taking me hostage.’”
The plane has been surrounded by people in masks who have detained all the cargo and were looking through what looked like boxes with documents, passengers said. The Turkish authorities were interested in some spare parts, which a businessman bought in Russia and was transporting to Syria, al-Saman said. She said that as far as she could tell, they were clearly not weapons.
“They started unloading some packages. They opened them, took pictures. There were many people. We all saw what was in there. There were no weapons. You could see it with an untrained eye!” she said. “They just had some spare parts and papers – objects, but there were no rockets. It is all a lie.”
The captain himself did not even know why the plane was ordered down, al-Saman said. She added that the search involved only luggage, and the passengers were mainly ignored.
“Everyone is ignoring us, making it seem like we do not exist,” she said. “The Russian Consulate did not get back to us. A lady has called one of the passengers and told her that the [embassy staff] are not being allowed to enter the airport territory. They have led us out of the plane where we kept asking for help, but everyone seems to ignore us.”
‘Close to disaster’
Following the incident Syrian Airlines accused the Turkish authorities of assaulting the airplane staff.
“The crew was subjected to aggressive behavior on the part of the Turkish authorities,” said airline director Ghaida Abd Al-Latif. She said that the Turkish began to get aggressive when the crew refused to sign the papers stating that the plane made an emergency landing.
Al-Latif said that the Turkish jets intercepted the passenger plane in the air without any prior warning and flew so close by that a real “disaster could have happened.”

[zraver]

NATO will go to war when NATO decides it will go to war. As a member of NATO Turkey's armed forces are required to abide by NATO's decision. The only circumstances Turkey can act preemptively is in defence, i.e. it faces an invasion. Any other circumstance, without NATO's argreement, it stands alone and possibly faces sanction.
NATO is extremely unlikely to approve an agressive war against Syria.

Not quite, Anatolia is technically not part of the collective defense agreement of the NATO charter. However, if a Turkish warship or civilian ship is attacked then Turkey can activate the mutual defense obligations of the NATO charter. Also a CW attack may activate the US defense assurances to Turkey where an attack against Turkey is an attack on the US.

This is the nightmare scenario that the US has already said is a red line for US intervention in the Syrian Civil War.

[TTL]

Not quite, Anatolia is technically not part of the collective defense agreement of the NATO charter.

Actually anatolia is included. Of course how other members will respond if Turkey calls for activation of article 5 is anyones guess.

ARTICLE 6

For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

- on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of Turkey or on the islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
- on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

[cyppok]

Actually anatolia is included. Of course how other members will respond if Turkey calls for activation of article 5 is anyones guess.

Very astute!!! Never figured that part actually. I actually think it is a forgone conclusion. HOWEVER!, it could be theoretically possible that certain members could simply say to hell with it and de-facto non-comply. What effects this has for NATO as an alliance I do not know.

Most likely candidates to "abstain" my feeling would be Spain and Portugal, simply due to IMF pressure and monetary crisis it could be a way to 'lash out'. Here comes the other aspect, whom is going to pay the bill when it is due? Now we get into the monetary grumbling arguments.

[Doktor]

cyppok,

You are forgetting Greece.

I'd take liberty to guess that even if they had $1tn surplus they'd still abstain.

[cyppok]

cyppok,

You are forgetting Greece.

I'd take liberty to guess that even if they had $1tn surplus they'd still abstain.

Not with the IMF Stooges at the helm which is what all those people in control are. All those "economic" ministers turned PM and other positions. Greece would be the first to agree for more aid.

Spain and Portugal, even Hungary could abstain in a very real way. Hungary has the politicians in charge whom could do it.
Spain and Portugal do not but the political will could be present to change that, you have to give credence to the Spanish monarchy in times like these.

[TTL]

Turkey requests PATRIOTs

POLITICS - Turkey in official bid for NATO

Why they waited until now to make the request?

[NUS]

POLITICS - Turkey in official bid for NATO

Why they waited until now to make the request?

And why would they made the request ealier? To defend Turkey against what?

[Officer of Engineers]

And why would they made the request ealier? To defend Turkey against what?

Of course, Assad out of the goodness of his heart would never consider threatening Turkey

Syrian regime makes chemical warfare threat | World news | guardian.co.uk

[NUS]

Of course, Assad out of the goodness of his heart would never consider threatening Turkey

Syrian regime makes chemical warfare threat | World news | guardian.co.uk

"All of these types of weapons are in storage and under security and the direct supervision of the Syrian armed forces and will never be used unless Syria is exposed to external aggression."

So, Turkey wants to invade Syria and wants no consequences. Well, it makes much more sense, then use of Patriots against occasional mortar fire.

In this case we have a good estimate of the invasion date - right after Patriots are online. Of course, they still need some NATO citizens blood to open a "legal" way to invasion. Take care.

[Officer of Engineers]

So, Turkey wants to invade Syria and wants no consequences.

Assad threatened biochems without a Syrian mobilization.

Well, it makes much more sense, then use of Patriots against occasional mortar fire.

Against a self declared violator the BWC. You would believe Assad.

In this case we have a good estimate of the invasion date - right after Patriots are online. Of course, they still need some NATO citizens blood to open a "legal" way to invasion. Take care.

No need for invasion but a renewed rebel offensive, most likely using Turkish assets, is about to begin.

[NUS]

Nevermind. We'll see.

[Parihaka]

Israel Asked Jordan for Approval to Bomb Syrian WMD Sites

Anxiety is increasing about the prospect of a desperate Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against his rapidly proliferating enemies. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Assad that such chemical weapons use would cross a U.S. red line: "I'm not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice to say we are certainly planning to take action."

This new level of anxiety was prompted by reports that Assad's forces have been moving chemical weapons, according to David Sanger and Eric Schmitt in The Times. They report that one American official told them that "the activity we are seeing suggests some potential chemical weapon preparation," though the official "declined to offer more specifics of what those preparations entailed."

The U.S. is not the only country worried about the possible use of chemical weapons. Intelligence officials in two countries told me recently that the Israeli government has twice come to the Jordanian government with a plan to take out many of Syria's chemical weapons sites. According to these two officials, Israel has been seeking Jordan's "permission" to bomb these sites, but the Jordanians have so far declined to grant such permission.

Of course, Israel can attack these sites without Jordanian approval (in 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor), but one official told me that the Israelis are concerned about the possible repercussions of such an attack on Jordan. "A number of sites are not far from the border," he said, further explaining: "The Jordanians have to be very careful about provoking the regime and they assume the Syrians would suspect Jordanian complicity in an Israeli attack." Intelligence sources told me that Israeli drones are patrolling the skies over the Jordan-Syria border, and that both American and Israeli drones are keeping watch over suspected Syrian chemical weapons sites.

He went on to provide context of the Israeli request: "You know the Israelis -- sometimes they want to bomb right away. But they were told that from the Jordanian perspective, the time was not right." The Israeli requests were made in the last two months, communicated by Mossad intermediaries dispatched by Prime Minister Netanyahu's office, according to these sources. (I asked the Israeli embassy in Washington for comment on this, but received no answer.)

Jordan and Israel closely cooperate on security matters, and Jordan itself has become a hub of anti-Assad activity. Sources told me that the U.S., Jordan and their Arab Gulf allies have established a "war room" coordinated by the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID), which is organizing efforts to screen Syrian militants for jihadist sympathies, and to provide those without jihadist connections or proclivities with training and equipment. The "war room" was established in part to counter the influence of Turkish and Qatari supporters of more religiously militant anti-Assad fighters. Jordanian intelligence is also concerned about the Syrian regime infiltrating sleeper agents into the main Syrian refugee camp in Jordan near Zaatari, and into Jordanian cities, which are already temporary home to tens of thousands of refugees.