President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addresses members of his Justice and Development Party, Istanbul, Turkey, February 29, 2020 (Anadolu)
UPDATE, 1355 GMT:
The Turkish military says its forces have downed two Russian-made jets in the latest attacks on pro-Assad positions in Idlib Province.
The Assad regime initially denied the story. But it withdrew the denial and said pilots of the stricken jets had ejected with parachutes.
The Turkish Defense Ministry said it also had destroyed three regime air defence systems, including one that shot down a Turkish armed drone.
Soon after the jets were downed, the regime declared that it had closed the airspace over Idlib: “[Any plane] that violates our airspace will be treated as a hostile flight that must be shot down and prevented from achieving its objectives”.
Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said that since Friday, Ankara’s forces have destroyed or captured 1 drone, 8 helicopters, 103 tanks, and 3 air defense systems. He declared that 2,212 regime soldiers have been “eliminated”.
UPDATE, 0915 GMT:
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has tried to intervene in the Russian-Turkish tensions over Idlib Province, with phone calls to both Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin.
Rouhani told Putin that Syria’s 107-month conflict “will be resolved only through dialogue, and we must not let the situation in Idlib turn into a pretext for America’s interference and misuse of the Syrian issue”.
He invoked a revival of the Astana process, the political front started by Iran, Russia, and Turkey in January 2018.
Rouhani also emphasized tripartite cooperation to Erdoğan: “The lives of people must be saved and terrorists must be eradicated.”
Iran has been essential in propping up the Assad regime, with political, military, and economic support since 2011.
Tehran has largely been sidelined as Turkey confronts the Russian-regime offensive in northwest Syria. However, on Friday seven Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders were among the pro-Assad forces killed by Turkish strikes that decimated regime positions.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on Russia to end its essential support of the Assad regime and quit the 10-month offensive against opposition-held Idlib Province in northwest Syria.
Speaking on the day of his deadline for regime forces to leave Idlib, Erdoğan said he made the request in a Friday phone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin: “I asked Putin for Russia to leave Turkish forces alone to fight the regime. We can’t seem to understand Russia’s intentions there.”
Erdoğan issued his ultimatum to the regime in late January. The Russian-regime offensive initially continued, seizing the key town of Saraqeb, but Ankara stepped up weapons to the anti-Assad Syrian National Army and sent troops to the frontline for the first time. The support enabled rebels to regain Saraqeb, at the junction of the M4 and M5 highways, and make further advances.
Last Thursday the confrontation further escalated when a Russian or regime airstrike killed 36 Turkish troops, the largest loss for Ankara since it intervened in northern Syria in August 2016. The Turkish military responded with a devastating assault on more than 200 pro-Assad targets, with the destruction or capture of scores of tanks, armored personnel carriers, multiple rocket launchers, and other heavy weapons.
See also Syria Daily, Feb 29: “Our Revenge Has Not Begun” — Turkey Pounds Assad Regime in Idlib
Addressing members of his ruling Justice and Development Party in Istanbul yesterday, the President declared, “If we do not clear our borders from terrorists now, we might have to fight bigger wars inside Turkey later on.”
He announced the intention for a 30-km (19-mile) “safe zone” along the entire Turkish-Syrian border, complementing a 450-km (250-mile) long area pursued by Turkey across two Kurdish cantons in northeast Syria.
Erdoğan declared that the Turkish military has now killed more than 2,100 Assad troops since confrontation escalated in January. He claimed that seven chemical sites; almost 300 military vehicles, including 94 tanks; airfields; air defense systems; and ammunition depots had been destroyed.
The President later wrote on Twitter: “We continue to make efforts day and night to protect the interests of our country and to allow our nation to come out with a victory at least as great as that we achieved 100 years ago….The righteous struggle against oppression will continue till the end.”
Türkiye, bugünü ve geleceği bakımından tarihi ve hayati bir mücadele içerisindedir. Neticeleri en az 100 yıl önceki kadar büyük olacak bir mücadeleden, ülkemizin ve Milletimizin menfaatlerini koruyarak zaferle çıkmak için gece gündüz demeden çalışmalarımızı sürdürüyoruz.
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) February 29, 2020
NATO, European countries, and the US have issued statements of support for Turkey, but Ankara continued to press Europe by encouraging Syrian refugees to go to Greece.
Greek police responded with tear gas and stun grenades to push back hundreds of refugees trying to cross the border.
Turkey hosts more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees, but closed its border to further entry in 2016.
The Russian-regime offensive, which has killed almost 2,000 civilians and wounded thousands since late April, has driven more than 1 million people out of their homes and towards the Turkish border.
See also The Man-Made Horror in Syria’s Idlib Province
Erdoğan told his party members:
What did we do yesterday (Friday)? We opened the doors.
We will not close those doors….Why? Because the European Union should keep its promises.
“Brigade 47 south of #Hama under attack by aircrafts” – @markito0171
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Interesting idea. Remember Russians can’t provide air support if all their airbases are closed down on rebel offensives days by ‘drone swarms’ and rocket barrages, the regime helicopters can’t provide ‘air support’ if there’s no Russian jets and too many rebel MANPAD units and too many rebel offensives on multiple axis on multiple targets (e.g. some can be to hold permanently, others could be to stay long enough to fill that town with enough booby-traps that when regime troops enter they’re spend days dismantling them giving rebels time to attack that town again), if rebels can do my above tactics then there would very little regime air support because those ‘drone swarms’ and MANPADs/rocket barrages means rebels not only keep their towns lot longer it also means rebels have time to dig bigger/deeper trenches to protect themselves from regime air attack and regime armour attack.
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I give this one further advice to rebels: IF you hear/see the Russians or SAA have moved ANY anti-aircraft gear closer to Idlib then IMMEDIATELY launch quick offensives on those areas where those Russian/SAA anti-aircraft gear. Throw everything at capturing that Russian/SAA anti-aircraft gear if those anti-aircraft units come ANYWHERE NEAR IDLIB. The payoff for you would be awesome and you’ll be able to top-up whatever MANPAD and AA gear you get from the Turks.
“Air defenses activated tonight as #Hama Airbase is under drone attack. Unclear if Rebel or #TSK armed UAVs.” –
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LOL! Rebel drone operators saying to Turkish drone operators “Why should you get all the fun?!!!” ROFL!
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.”Rebels launched Grad rockets toward Salma in #Latakia mountains” – @markito0171
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Rebels could make this interesting by gathering all the MANPADs & ATGM they take from fleeing Assadists they fought in Idlib then wait for Idlib front to stabilise and then ship all that MANPADs & ATGM ‘ghanima’ to use in Latakia, especially in the area around Salma. Which reminds me to re-up this old post of mine on this topic:
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Now that rebels have a small number of MANPADs (from Turks and looted from Assadists?) the rebels should now deliberately bait regime helicopters to attack those rebel units that have MANPAD operators hidden amongst those rebel units so rebels can ambush more of those regime helicopters.
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How you say? Regime won’t be that stupid you say? The regime won’t use those helicopters whilst launching it’s offensives against rebels areas BUT if rebels launch a surprise offensive in multiple areas that the regime are desperate not to lose (e.g. a highway that supplies their army, the outskirts of a military airbase, a mountain like Nabi Yunus etc) then the regime will send in every one of their helicopters to that area if the Russians can’t or don’t want to send Russian jets to that area (e.g. Russians will prioritise defending their Hmemim airbase in Latakia ahead of Nayrab airbase because Hmemim is the one they directly control) IF rebels also at the same time launch ‘drone swarms’ to every airbase near the front-line in Idlib whilst launching their surprise offensive in multiple areas that the regime are desperate not to lose and because those ‘drone swarms’ will keep those Russian jets busy the regime will be forced to send all their helicopters to any area that the rebels capture which the rebels can then ambush with their MANPADs whilst rebel assault troops (e.g. Inghimasi) ‘hug the enemy’ long enough to use those MANPADs.
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Remember that the regime likely only has either 10 or 12 large helicopters left, if rebels can create/use a MANPAD ambush to knock out another 2 or 3 regime helicopters every week then Assad’s army will end up losing half their helicopters and the fewer helicopters Assad’s army has the less civilians in rebel areas get killed by Assad’s helicopters.
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BTW
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Why isn’t Tartous not subjected to ‘drone swarms’ by rebels knowing that’s well all the Russian jets, regime troops and regime’s oil money comes from? If Khmeeimim military airbase is too difficult for rebels to target then why not target the oil terminals and the shipping of Tartous? Especially if Tartous doesn’t have the same level of anti-drone system as Khmeeimim and Hama military airbase?
Syrian crap jet fighters falling like wasps from the skies….SAA beeing obliterated from turkish rebel fire……Assadists in full panic mode. Priceless. Big hello to barbar, de angelis magpie etc etc. 😉 🙂