...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
is turning up the heat on Syria’s Afrin, launching deadly strikes on Damascus loyalists deployed around the Kurdish enclave and closing in on its main city.
The development could redraw the map of northern Syria.
The violence came as the foreign ministers of Turkey and Russia, the two major foreign players in a conflict entering its eighth year tomorrow, met in Moscow.
A
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...predicting its fall last night.
Before the retraction, Erdogan had told supporters in Ankara Wednesday he hoped "Afrin will, God willing, have completely fallen by the evening."
Turkish army and FSA troops engage in combat in Afrin suburbs
[ALMASDARNEWS] Footage filmed on Tuesday allegedly showed the Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
(FSA), allied with the
This marks a significant advance in the
"As of March 12, the centre of Afrin has been surrounded and areas of critical importance for further operations have been captured," the
The
The offensive is ongoing despite a UN-brokered ceasefire in the country and the international community’s warnings of an urgent humanitarian crisis in the region.
Turkish raids kill 10 Syria regime loyalists near Afrin: monitor
[AlAhram] Turkish bombing raids killed 10 fighters loyal to the Syrian government on Wednesday at a checkpoint they were manning near the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, a monitor said.
"The air strikes targeted a checkpoint on the only road leading from Afrin to regime-controlled territory to the southeast," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Of the 10 fighters killed, eight were from the nearby regime-held town of Nubul, the Observatory said.
The road that was bombed on Wednesday is the only official way out of the town, and while it has not been fully captured by pro-Turkish assault, it is within firing range.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said some civilians were trying to escape from Afrin along smuggling routes avoiding the main road.
Turkey has killed dozens of pro-Damascus fighters backing the YPG in Afrin.