More than two weeks after Turkey launched another invasion into Syria dubbed “Olive Branch” by the Erdogan regime, it looks as though the Turkish army is slowly drowning in the Syrian swamp.
While state-controlled media in Turkey report huge successes and suggest it will be a matter of days before the Kurdish YPG militia in the most northern canton of Afrin surrenders, the situation on the ground gives a different picture.
It has also become clear that Erdogan had a hidden agenda when he attacked the Kurds in Afrin and claimed he only wanted to cleanse the area of “terrorists” - meaning the Kurds, who defeated ISIS and Islamic State itself which has no presence in Afrin.
The Turkish army suffered its greatest loss on February 3-4 when ten soldiers were killed in 24 hours, with the Kurds exposing serious flaws in Erdogan’s battle plan and weak points of the defense mechanisms of the German Leopard II tank which the Turks used in the offensive.
The Turkish offensive has also been hampered by infighting among the Islamist rebel groups in northern Syria which operate under the name Free Syrian Army and are Turkey’s ally in operation “Olive Branch”.
Another setback was a temporary ban on Turkish aerial actions in northern Syria imposed by Russia this weekend.
Observers said the Russian measure was related to the downing of a Russian warplane by Islamist rebels in Idlib, which neighbors Afrin.
However, the real reason for the Russian ban could be a sudden move by Erdogan’s forces, who moved into the area south of Aleppo all the way down to northern Idlib, a bastion of Sunni Islamist rebel groups and currently under siege by the Russian-Iranian backed pro-Assad coalition. READ MORE
