Another Syrian nightmare, courtesy of the Russians
Russian operations are rattling Turkey as militants fleeing Syria infiltrate Turkey.
Turkey is now having to cope with multifaceted ramifications of Russia’s intervention in Syria. What has made Ankara nervous is not only the failure of the government’s Syria policy, but the collapse of plans for a safe zone to house Syrian refugees and withering away of the idea to support opposition forces with Turkey’s rules of engagement. Now Turkey has to deal with new tensions created by the fleeing of armed Syrian militants from Russian bombings to Turkey.
Before going into implications of the Russian violations, it will help to take a look at the situation along the border that has been off the Turkish agenda for a while.
It is a fact that northern Syria acquires its logistics and manpower through Turkey. In earlier days, militants escaping from the Syrian army into refugee camps near the border had caused fatalities. Now the Russian air force is on the scene and the escape routes are once again active.
According to what Al-Monitor learned from local sources in Hatay on Oct. 5, 15 militants in full gear entered Turkey at the Turfanda village on the Syria-Turkey border and moved toward Antakya. Residents notified the gendarmerie but the men eventually disappeared in the company of soldiers.
