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Assad reportedly arms Turkey's Kurdish PKK
fighters after giving them Syrian bases
22.7.2012
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report |
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PKK flags in Syrian Kurdistan near
the Turkish border. Photo: Cihan
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Assad
rebuilds fighting command, retaliates against Turkey
July
22, 2012
DAMASCUS, Syria,— Turkey's Kurdish PKK
fighters allowed by Damascus to set up bases for
operations against Turkey in the Kurdish region in
northern Syria (Syrian Kurdistan) were also given
weapons and allowed to blow up an important Middle
East oil pipelines running from Kirkuk, Iraq out to
the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, DEBKAfile
website reported.
Friday, Kurdish fighters in West Kurdistan seized
power in the Kurdish city of
Afrin in Syrian Kurdistan, one day
after taking control of all government institutions
in the Kurdish city of
Kobanę.
Syrian president Bashar Assad quickly recovered from
the blow he suffered with the loss of his four top
allies last Wednesday, July 18. Within 24 hours, he
had put in place a new command for fighting the
rebels headed by his younger brother Gen. Maher
Assad, commander of the 4th Division, DEBKAfile’s
military and intelligence sources report
exclusively. He also appointed Gen. Ali Mamloukh to
head the General Security Service; Gen. Hafez
Makhlouf, military commander of Damascus; and Gen.
Ali Hassan, new chief of the Alawite Shabiha
militia.
Gen. Fahad Jassim al-Freij was sworn in as Defense
Minister Thursday.
Despite a wave of desertions, the Syrian army was
soon back on the job, showing no signs of shock or
wavering at the command level.
Within 48 hours the army had driven the rebels out
of the Maidan district of Damascus. And while some
media focused on the rebels’ capture of two
Syrian-Iraqi crossings Saturday, our sources report
that Assad and his new command had already moved on
and were busy with a tactical move in retaliation
against Turkey for the assassinations at the top of
Assad’s inner circle: They opened the door to an
influx of rebels of the Turkish PKK (Kurdistan
Workers Party) from Iraq into Syria’s northern
Kurdish regions, with permission to set up bases of
operation along the Turkish border.
This step had three immediate consequences:
1. By giving the armed Turkish Kurds' separatist
movement bases of attack against Ankara, the Assad
regime was able to pacify Syria’s own 2-3
million-strong Kurdish minority (ten percent of the
population) and make sure their towns in the north
did not join the Syrian uprising.
2. By guaranteeing his own Kurdish minority’s
loyalty, Assad released the troops posted there to
fight Syrian rebels on other fronts.
3. While acting as hosts for the rebel Free Syrian
Army commands which are campaigning against
Damascus, Turkey is itself exposed to a new
strategic threat from its southern border with
Syria.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the flow of
Turkish Kurdish fighters into northern Syria has
advanced the local Kurdish separatist drive led by
the Syrian Democratic Union Party. Friday, July 20,www.ekurd.net
PYD and PKK fighters from Iraq joined forces to
seize control of two Syrian-Turkish border towns,
Afrin and Kobanę (Ayn-al Arab in Arabic).
Assad calculated that semi-autonomous status
achieved by Syrian Kurds in Syria would act as a
shot in the arm for the PKK on the other side of the
border and encourage their raids on Turkish
government and military targets in support of their
demand for like status in Turkey.
The PKK were quick on the draw: Friday, they
blew
up the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline
carrying about a quarter of Iraq’s oil exports at
the southeastern Turkish Kurdish town of Midyat near
the Syrian border.
Assad has therefore begun exacting revenge on Turkey
for the assassinations which cut down his inner
circle.
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