International Military Review – Syria, Feb. 9, 2016

even al jazeera is eventually just beginning to refer to rebels, armed opposition in Aleppo, immediate surroundings eg idlib areas, showing “defenders ” in camo clothing, who will continue to fight…………and there is increasing uncertainty how much ISIS presence is in these groups clearly committed to continue the rebellion, and ISIS doing another big bomb in Damascus today…………….although the rest from al jazeera is their usual propaganda stuff, Rus expansion etc, all to keep Assad in power, prevent reformation of opposition to come to effective in negotiations etc…………..

43 Turkmen and Arab fighters from Til Abyad join the ranks of YPG/SDF after 3 months of training. via anha

Russia taunts Turkey on its ‘artificial borders’

Also, on Monday in Moscow, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu disclosed that the troops of the Southern Military District, units of the airborne troops and military transport aviation have been put on full combat alert to test their readiness to respond to crisis situations.

A long-forgotten skeleton tumbled out of the Russo-Turkish cupboard when two prominent Russian lawmakers wrote to the Kremlin demanding the abrogation of the Treaty of Moscow (also known as the Treaty of Friendship and Brotherhood) signed between Bolshevik Russia and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ninety-five years ago in March 1921 during the long sunset when the curtain had come down on Czarist and Ottoman Empires and the successor regimes were not yet born. (TASS).

The two developments may seem unrelated. But they are not. Their thud will be heard in Ankara – and as far away as Brussels where a two-day meeting of the NATO Defence Ministers is due to start on Wednesday, which promises to be a fateful event impacting the future trajectory of the Syrian conflict.

Why the Treaty of Moscow (March 1921) – or the Treaty of Kars (October 1921) that followed it? The short point is that even today these two treaties define Turkey’s borders with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (which used to be former Soviet republics) and yet, their legality remains highly debatable. Armenia and Georgia never recognized the arbitrary transfer of territories belonging to them to Turkey by the Bolsheviks.

The Bolsheviks, struggling desperately to survive the foreign invasion, made territorial concessions to Turkey. The Treaty of Moscow (like the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Weimar Germany) marked Russia’s exit from World War I. But, curiously, neither the Bolsheviks nor Ataturk at that time represented their states – USSR or the Turkish Republic – which were formed subsequently.

After World War II, Soviet Union demanded the return of the territories ceded to Turkey. But Winston Churchill intervened to take Turkey under the Anglo-American wings and Joseph Stalin avoided a confrontation.

The Russian lawmakers who petitioned the Kremlin underscored that today’s Russia speaks from a position of strength and should let it be known to Ankara that any “escalation of the conflict” in Syria by the latter is fraught with the danger of the Turkish state’s borders in the Trans-Caucasus unravelling. They wrote, “Only this can bring it (Turkey) down to earth and prevent it from carrying out new provocations”.

http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2016/02/09/russia-taunts-turkey-on-its-artificial-borders/

Russian Airstrikes in Syria: January 29 – February 7, 2016 by: ISW Syria Team

Russia’s four month long air campaign has set conditions for the encirclement of Aleppo. Pro-regime forces backed by heavy Russian airstrikes severed one of two opposition supply lines into Aleppo City from the Turkish border on February 3 when they pushed northwest of the city to reestablish a regime supply line to the besieged regime towns of Nubl and Zahra’a. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps fighters and Iranian-backed Shi’a militia forces played a prominent role in the offensive, demonstrating the lethality of combined Russian air and Iranian ground operations against the opposition in Syria. Reports of Russian Spetnaz activity at unspecified locations in Aleppo Province likely indicate the involvement of these forces in the operation. The gains position pro-regime forces to encircle opposition-held portions of Aleppo City by severing the last remaining opposition supply line that runs east from the Turkish border into the city. The regime can sever this final supply line at two locations: an outer location northwest of Aleppo City on the road to the Turkish border that passes through the towns of Huraytan and Kafr Hamra, or an inner location in the city’s eastern sector controlled by the armed opposition, such as the Hanano District. Russia’s air campaign has consistently targeted the outer location for the past three months, indicating that this is where pro-regime forces intend to complete the encirclement. This section of the supply line runs through rural terrain that Russian airpower can easily target and Iranian-backed ground forces can ultimately seize, whereas the inner location is more difficult as the terrain includes both topographic and urban barriers to rapid ground offensives. Pro-regime forces are meanwhile taking steps to buffer their forward line of troops (FLOT) to the north of Aleppo to make it possible to sustain the encirclement. Pro-regime forces will likely complete the encirclement of Aleppo in coming weeks and besiege the opposition inside the city in order to force Turkey and Saudi Arabia to concede to a negotiated settlement or ceasefire.

http://www.iswresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/russian-airstrikes-in-syria-january-29.html

More alarmingly, Ankara may soon face a menacing combination of hostile forces along its southern borders: Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)-affiliated YPG forces, the self-proclaimed Islamic State, and the Syrian Arab Army. The only Ankara-friendly groups near the Turkish border would be the rebel fighters in Idlib province, who would be surrounded by Latakia in the south and Aleppo in the northeast.

Under these tense circumstances, Russia accused Turkey of preparing for a military incursion into Syria. In response — having already drawn attention to Russian “crimes” in Syria — Ankara firmly stated that it had the right to take necessary measures for its national security. This rhetorical exchange raised eyebrows about prospects of a possible Turkish incursion into Syria. Yet while a limited Turkish intervention in Syria might seem likely, Russian presence in Syria remains a highly complicating and dissuasive factor.

Primary Drawback: The Russian Factor

The Russian military deployment presents the most significant challenge to a Turkish incursion into Syria. Any Turkish ground incursion would require close air support from Turkish army aviation attack helicopters and air interdiction operations flown by the Turkish air force. Though air superiority would not be a prerequisite for operating Turkish rotary and fixed wing assets in Syrian territory, the Turkish air force would have to deny air superiority to the Russian air force, at the very least.

The operational necessity of denying Russian air superiority could lead to direct Turkish–Russian air-to-air clashes. Problematically, the Russian air force detachment in Syria is now much stronger than it was in November 2015, when a Russian Su-24 was downed by the Turkish air force for violating Turkish airspace. The Kremlin responded to that Turkish move with further escalation: Russia deployed S-400 long-range air and missile defense systems, additional Su-34 strike fighters, and extremely capable Su-35S air superiority fighters. Currently, over 20 air superiority “Flankers”(SU-27SM3, Su-30SM, and Su-35S) and air-to-air capable Su-34 Fullbacks pose a deterrent threat to any Turkish operations within Syrian airspace. Furthermore, the Russian air wing in Syria now operates under a robust, layered air defense umbrella provided by deployed S-400s, SA-17s, and SA-22s coupled with advanced electronic warfare capabilities, such as the recently spotted Krasukha-4 that could blind Turkish command and control systems and aircraft.

In the absence of air superiority, Turkish maneuver units would face significant challenges in an extremely hostile environment that could result in high casualties. If Turkey opts to reduce risk for its ground forces by denying Russian air superiority, the situation could escalate dangerously. The Turkish air force’s 151st Squadron in Merzifon is assigned to the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) duties with its AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARM) that could be effective against some Russian air defenses and ground-based electronic warfare assets. Yet the Russian anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) bubble in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean penetrates several hundred kilometers into Turkish territory, holding all Turkish combat air patrols (CAPs) at risk. Further, open-source intelligence suggests a significant shift in the payload configurations of Russian aircraft in Syria. Russian strike packages are now flying with more escort aircraft and an increased number of air-to-air missiles. In a confrontation, beyond visual range (BVR) combat with AIM-120C and AA-10 or AA-12 missiles would be the determining factor, though Russian air superiority fighters could certainly seek to exploit their kinematic advantages by seeking within visual range (WVR) combat.

Even more importantly, the risk of a Turkish–Russian escalation inevitably brings NATO into the picture. If Ankara acts unilaterally by opening an out-of-area front in Syria, this likely would not be subject to the Article V umbrella, unless Russia then attacked Turkish territory.

http://warontherocks.com/2016/02/prospects-for-a-turkish-incursion-into-syria/