In a major boost for forces fighting Islamic State extremists in Syria but likely to stir controversy with NATO ally Turkey, the United States on Monday began airdropping pallets of weapons and ammunition to a Syrian Kurdish militia and allied Arab forces in northern Syria.
The US arming Kurds to "fight" the US/Israel/NATO proxy of ISIS- War theatre!
“They started dropping the arms in Rojava early this morning,” said Polat Can, the spokesman for the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Kurdish political party whose armed wing, with the help of U.S. bombing, has pushed the Islamic State from as much as 6,800 square miles of northern Syria. Rojava, or “west Kurdistan,” is the name the PYD uses to refer to northern Syria’s Kurdish areas.
Because the Kurds have been affiliated with the US for a dam long time now
Meanwhile, Russian aircraft continued to bomb targets in Syria’s west, far removed from the main operating areas of the Islamic State, while the United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, stepped up his efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict, setting visits to Moscow and Washington. He said his first priority was to make certain that Russian military intervention doesn’t result in a spreading conflict.
The Pentagon confirmed that C-17 transport aircraft had dropped 45 tons of arms in 100 pallets to groups inside northern Syria. But it said the initial drop, which it said occurred late Sunday night, was to benefit “Arab groups,” a nod to Turkish concerns about U.S. support for the PYD’s Popular Protection Units, or YPG, militia.
The US confirms the initial drop into Rojova- which is land the Kurdish militias stole from Syria, while SAA was actually busy, actually fighting, the other US backed militias
Can said the airdrops are expected to continue for days.
And there are yet more arms to be dropped to the Kurdish militias- Likely the 120 tons mentioned in yesterday's post!
US Airdrops Tons & Tons of Munitions into Northern Syria- For the “good” terrorists
The drop came just two days after the Pentagon announced that it had ended its ill-starred $500 million program to train and equip vetted Syrians to fight the Islamic State and said that the money that remained would be used to supply weapons to armed groups already in Syria that had had success combating the Islamic State.
Of course the Kurdish militias had "success" fighting IS. They are on the same dam team!Syrian Arab Army has struggled with all the US backed terrorists because real war is being waged against them by all the US/Israeli/NATO terrorists- Every single brand name of themAQ, Al Nusra, YPG etc. That is a fact.
Our prime and most important goal is to liberate Jarablus and to connect Kobani with Afrin. . . .The Turks are very unhappy. Polat Can, Kurdish spokesmanCan said the weapons dropped in “Rojava” included assault rifles, mortars and ammunition – but no TOW anti-tank missiles nor anti-aircraft weapons. He said the Kurdish forces would distribute weapons to Arab units affiliated with the YPG.
“Everyone will take arms. We believe in sharing,” he said in an interview with McClatchy, adding that the YPG’s ability to provide arms “is why some Arab tribes are joining us.”
Kurds and NATO/US/ Israel affiliated Arabs have been fighting together for a dam good long while now. Cause al Nusra/AQ/ISIS/ Kurds are all on the same team! This has been covered here previously. The Turks are unhappy because they are getting royally screwed over and are completely aware of it happening- I've covered that for a dam long time here!
It’s just short of a year since the United States last dropped weapons to YPG, which at the time was battling to beat off an Islamic State offensive against the town of Kobani. The YPG prevailed, with the help of hundreds of American airstrikes. Turkey, a U.S. NATO ally and a major player in the region and which views the YPG as a terrorist organization, objected bitterly.
Because the Kurds are not loyal to Syria. Or they would have assisted SAA with the fight against ISIS and this would have won the war. Instead the Kurds stuck with their longtime NATO benefactors
The YPG is the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, with which Turkey is currently fighting in southern Turkey and in Iraq.
The YPG is the sibling organization, which means they have the same "parent"- NATOThe PKK is a globally recognized terror group armed by NATO
The very fact that the U.S. could not deliver the arms overland from the territory of two allies, Turkey or Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, illustrates the controversy surrounding the U.S. decision to supply the YPG.
Yes, it's controversial because Turkey is getting railroaded and knows it. The US has no concern for Turkey's borders or unity. The weapons were airdropped for expediency! Get munitions into the hands of the US/NATO backed fighters as quickly as possible
Turkey views the YPG’s stated ambition of creating a contiguous Kurdish-run entity in northern Syria as a threat to its own security. Meanwhile, the largely autonomous Kurdistan government in Iraq has strained relations with the YPG militia and often holds up its supplies over the land border to Syria.The quantity of arms may add to the strains. The Obama administration has said much of what remains of the money appropriated for the train-and-equip program will go to groups in northern Syria, a huge amount for a force that numbers an estimated 20,000.
The YPG ambition is a threat to Turkey. And the quantity of arms was designed to threaten Turkey and aggravate every situation at hand
Under the plan, a YPG officer will be in overall command of the Kurdish-Arab fighting force, which is calling itself the Syrian Democratic Forces. Can announced the creation of the alliance Sunday, just as the airdrops were starting.
The Kurds and the Syrian Democratic Forces are one and the same.
U.S. officials hope the YPG will now turn its attention to Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the defacto capital of the Islamic State, which lies just 60 miles south of Tal Abyad, a border town the YPG seized from the Islamic State in June, with U.S. help.
But PYD spokesman Can said the Kurdish group’s first priority is to link the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, northwest of the Syrian city of Aleppo, with Kobani, the Kurdish enclave northeast of Aleppo. That would mean clearing the Islamic State from villages along 60 miles of the Turkey-Syria border, in particular the border town of Jarablus.
“Our prime and most important goal is to liberate Jarablus and to connect Kobani with Afrin,” Can told McClatchy. Capturing Raqqa, a mostly Arab city, is “not really” a PYD objective, he said. “Not for now,” he said.
But the capture of Jarablus and the linking of Afrin with Kobani is likely to be seen as a threat to Turkey, whose objection to Kurds control that last stretch of border was one reason a Kurdish push against the Islamic State has stalled in recent weeks.
All that land taken by the Kurds is Syria's territory and it was inhabited by all manner of other peoples, until the US dropped bombs on civilians and the Kurds burnt many of them out of their homes- Raping and pillaging along the way- all these facts have been covered here at the blog on numerous occasions-
“The Turks are very unhappy,” Can said, though he added that at the end of the day, the outcome in northern Syria is “a Syrian issue, not a Turkish issue.”
The Turks are unhappy and that makes this their issue- Good thing the US and other NATO nations have sold them down the river already
Turkish officials have said Turkey will not permit the YPG to establish a contiguous link across northern Syria, but how Turkey will prevent that is not clear. Turkey is preoccupied by the final six weeks of a controversial parliamentary election campaign and reeling from a suicide bombing Saturday that killed nearly 100.
There was no immediate Turkish reaction to the airdrops. A Turkish government official interviewed in Ankara last week told McClatchy that Turkey cannot and will not let a linkage of the Kurdish enclaves happen.
In noting that the first airdrop was to “Arab groups,” a Pentagon spokeswoman said “we share the concern of our Turkish partners over the sensitivity of expanding Kurdish control into traditionally non-Kurdish areas in Syria.”
The Pentagon spokeswomen just paid the most blatant lip service to Turkish concerns one could ever read. Lip service : To just say something but not actually do it. To pretend that you believe a certain thing but not practice that belief. Believe me the US doesn't share a drop of concern for their Turkish partners and they never have.Anyone even suggesting the Kurdish militias are 'good rebels' is spreading lies. Period. Don't do it hereOoooo- lame media finally catching up to my older coverage regarding Kurd terror against others and their own!
- US-backed Kurdish forces accused of war crimes in Syria
- Syrian Kurds Accused of Human Rights Abuses Against Arabs
Earlier posts here on Kurdish atrocities:February 2015- Kurds commit ISIS like atrocities- Beheadings & Selfies with CorpsesJune 2015: US Probes Reports of Kurdish YPG Militias PURGING ArabsJune 2015: Kurds Worried War Crimes Accusations Could Ruin Their ImageJune 2015: Is the US Complicit in Ethnic Cleansing in Syria? Yes, Obviously!The above post takes us all back to a May 2015 post- US Led Airstrikes Kill 52 Syrian Civilians, 7 children inc. Completely missing ISIS
“Kurdish spokesperson, associated with YPG, knows of no civilian casualties. Or doesn't wish to acknowledge them? If the village was emptied of civilians prior to the strike, as the Kurdish spokesperson claims, what was this large group of civilians including children still doing there?My question is this. Was this large group of persons the intended target of the airstrikes? Because that's the only conclusion I can draw from all these reports”
August 2015 :Western Media's Absolute Hypocrisy In Covering Kurdish MilitancyClearly I was on top of the subject!