Erdogan tests Biden in targeting northeast Syria: US political analyst
WASHINGTON, USA (North Press) – An American political analyst recently stated that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is testing his counterpart Joe Biden’s administration, as it is preoccupied in the situation of Afghanistan, by targeting regions inhabited by Christians and Yezidis in northern Syria and Iraq.
Political analyst Tim Hogan said that the Turkish escalation in northeast Syria and Iraq is a dangerous development that is largely ignored, as the media is currently focused on what is happening in Afghanistan.
He pointed out the serious consequences of a new Turkish attack on northern Syria, which was liberated from ISIS years ago, will turn out in favor of the radical groups.
“The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are the best US partners in confronting the possibility for extremists to benefit from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Hogan explained.
“Erdogan is testing Biden’s administration by taking advantage of the US preoccupation in Afghanistan, as he did with the former US President Donald Trump when he managed to take over new Syrian regions and hand them over to militias close to al-Qaeda and ISIS in 2019.”
While the world is preoccupied with the events taking place in Afghanistan and the uncertain future that awaits the Afghans, especially the women, Turkish forces and pro-Turkish Syrian factions are launching the most violent attacks since 2019 on the Christian-populated Tel Tamr, northeast Syria, and Yezidi-populated Sinjar, north Iraq.
On August 17, a woman and a child were killed and others were wounded as a result of the Turkish shelling of the town of Abu Rasin (Zarkan), northeast Syria. More than 15 people, including children, were transferred to hospitals in the neighboring cities.
On August 17, four commanders of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) were killed in a Turkish air attack on the headquarters of the Military Council in the town of Tel Tamr, and another commander was killed when a Turkish drone targeted his car.
On Sunday, a Turkish drone targeted a military vehicle in the village of Himo in the western countryside of Qamishli city, northeast Syria, wounding a leader of the Internal Security Forces (Asayish) and two civilians.
The commands of both the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Asayish presented in two different statements information about the martyrs and said that they were the first to fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Kobani, Manbij, Raqqa, and Deir ez-Zor, and they countered the Turkish attacks during the invasions of Afrin, Sere Kaniye, and Tel Abyad in 2018 and 2019.
“Ankara’s attacks on the most powerful force in the face of the terrorist ISIS, the SDF, benefit it [ISIS], just as all of Erdogan’s moves in Syria,” Hogan believed.
Hogan referred to the sensitivity of the areas targeted by Turkey, where Erdogan and the Turkish-backed Syrian militants threaten villages populated by a Christian minority that will be subject to killing and abuse if Turkey storms the area.
Tel Tamr and Sinjar are symbols of the suffering of religious minorities, especially women, as ISIS kidnapped hundreds of Yezidi and Christian women between 2012 and 2014 before they were liberated by the YPG and Iraqi forces.
Washington is trying to ignore what Erdogan is doing to maintain political harmony with Ankara, which has promised to secure Kabul airport after the departure of the US, according to Hogan.
“If I were a military leader, I would have expelled Turkey from Kabul before the withdrawal of the US from it, because what Turkey and its Syrian militias are doing reflects harmony with the mentality of Taliban,” Hogan said.
“The Biden administration will face great threats from the extremist groups if it allows Erdogan to spread a new wave of chaos in northeast Syria, not to mention the crimes committed by Turkey and its militias and the Turkish aerial shelling against the Christian and Yezidi minorities who suffered under ISIS control.”
“An agreement between Russia, Turkey, and Damascus provides for moving quickly to extract any gains made by the US in its campaign against terrorism in Syria.”
Hogan described the US campaign against ISIS as “one of the most successful examples of American partnerships in the Middle East, where the SDF managed to eliminate ISIS without the need to launch an open American war in Syria.”
“Turkey violated the ceasefire agreement in northern Syria more than 100 times; the agreement that was signed between Trump and Turkey in 2019,” said Amy Austin Holmes, an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Biden had sharply criticized the Trump administration for what the US media described as a “green light” for Turkey to storm northern Syria in an operation that killed hundreds of Kurdish fighters cooperating with Washington during the campaign to defeat ISIS.