But early today, a newspaper owned by a loyalist of Turkish President Recep Erdogan threatened to reveal more details, provoking an escalating confrontation between the U.S. and our NATO ally.
The threats were published in today's edition of Takvim, owned by businessman Ahmet Calik (a close friend of Erdogan). The CEO of the company that owns the paper is none other than Erdogan's son-in-law.
Bloomberg Politics reported:
Turkey’s state-run news agency published U.S. base locations in northern Syria, a move that threatens to deepen distrust between the two allies by exposing American soldiers on the front lines of the fight against Islamic State.
In reports published in both Turkish and English on Tuesday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency provided detailed information about 10 U.S. bases in northern Syria, including troop counts and a map of the U.S. force presence in the Turkish version. The reports said that the military outposts are "usually hidden for security reasons, making it hard to be detected." It said they were located "in the terrorist PKK/PYD-held Syrian territories," a reference to Kurdish groups that Turkey’s government considers terrorist organizations.
Despite a tight military alliance dating back to the Cold War, Turkey and the U.S. have been at odds for years now over the U.S. backing of Kurdish fighters in Syria who are affiliated with separatist movements inside Turkey. The Turkish government probably leaked U.S. troop locations to Anadolu as retaliation, according to Aaron Stein, a fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
"The U.S. takes force protection seriously, obviously," Stein said by email on Wednesday. "The Turkish government knows this, and still decided to leak the locations of U.S. bases in Syria. Hard not to see this as a F-you."
The Pentagon responded by saying that the move put U.S. troops in danger and jeopardized the coalition mission against ISIS:
The publication by Turkey's state-run news agency of the locations of what appeared to be U.S. military posts in Syria puts American forces in danger, and the United States has complained to Turkey, a NATO ally, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
Anadolu news agency published a report on Tuesday naming the location of 10 U.S. military posts in northern Syria, in some cases detailing the number of U.S and French troops present.
"The release of sensitive military information exposes Coalition forces to unnecessary risk and has the potential to disrupt ongoing operations to defeat ISIS," said Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, using an acronym for Islamic State.
"While we cannot independently verify the sources that contributed to this story, we would be very concerned if officials from a NATO ally would purposefully endanger our forces by releasing sensitive information," Pahon said.
Erdogan and other top Turkish authorities have become vocally belligerent towards their fellow NATO allies in recent months, even threatening "holy wars" in Europe: