Syria’s Afghanization is seen predominantly in the area that extends from Idlib to Aleppo, meets with the Kurdish Rojava region and then stretches along the Euphrates Valley, via Deir el-Zour, all the way to Iraq’s Sunni region. Those capable of reading the map of the Syrian civil war would also discern this: If Turkey had not been Pakistanizing, Syria would not have been Afghanizing. It means that the jihadists — mainly the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra — could not have Afghanized Syria’s northern region bordering Turkey without logistical support from quarters in Turkey and easy access to Turkish territory and the Syrian border. Without using the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar as a rear base, Jabhat al-Nusra could not have fought the Kurds for months in Ras al-Ain, right on the other side of the border. In December, the United States placed Jabhat al-Nusra on its list of terrorist organizations. In April, the group declared loyalty to al-Qaeda and its ideology. When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Washington in May, the United States conveyed to the Turkish side its discomfort over the support and mobility Jabhat al-Nusra enjoyed in Turkey. This, however, does not mean that US perception of the threat should be a prerequisite for Turkey to take action against al-Qaeda. Now we have learned that Turkey, at long last, is also perceiving threats from al-Qaeda. A senior Turkish bureaucrat, who briefed a group of columnists in Istanbul in early September, made the following remark: “Jabhat al-Nusra is a threat for us, too, and the entire political quarter shares this view. It is out of the question for Turkey to support Jabhat al-Nusra in any way.” “The political quarter” means the AKP [Justice and Development Party] and the government.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 04:20:36 +0000
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