{"id":41225,"date":"2019-10-17T03:22:23","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T03:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41225"},"modified":"2019-10-17T03:22:23","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T03:22:23","slug":"iraq-anti-corruption-drive-stops-short-of-snaring-worst-culprits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41225","title":{"rendered":"Iraq anti-corruption drive stops short of snaring worst culprits"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBEIRUT: A week-old Turkish invasion of northeast Syria combined with a US withdrawal have redrawn the lines and left Russian-backed Syrian regime troops and Ankara\u2019s forces standing face-to-face.<\/p>\n

\nExperts argue that an all-out conflict between Syrian regime forces and Turkey is unlikely but they do not rule out sporadic clashes.<\/p>\n

\nOn Oct. 9, the Turkish army and its Syrian proxies launched a broad offensive against Kurdish forces controlling swathes of northeastern Syria.<\/p>\n

\nThe move against the People\u2019s Protection Units (YPG), a militia Ankara considers a terrorist group, came after US troops who were deployed along the border as a buffer between the two enemies pulled back.<\/p>\n

\nTurkey and its proxies \u2014 mostly Arab and Turkmen former rebels defeated by regime forces earlier in Syria\u2019s eight-year-old conflict \u2014 have already conquered territory along 120 km of the border.<\/p>\n

\nIn some areas, they have moved some 30 km deep into Syria territory, prompting the Kurds to turn for help to the regime in Damascus.<\/p>\n

\nGovernment troops responded and rushed north as soon as US troops withdrew from some of their positions, including the strategic city of Manbij.<\/p>\n

\nThe Syrian regime\u2019s main backer Russia swiftly sent its own forces to patrol the new contact line between regime forces and the former fighters.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is mostly rebel groups linked to Ankara who are on the front lines, Turkish troops are mostly deployed along the border,\u201d the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.<\/p>\n

\nThe intense ballet of military deployments is redrawing the map of territorial control in a region previously held by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere\u2019s a new map. And it\u2019s the regime sweeping almost everything, Turkey is left with a few crumbs along the border,\u201d said Thomas Pierret, from the French National Center for Scientific Research.<\/p>\n

\nTurkey insists it will not stop the offensive until it meets its declared goals of creating a buffer zone all along the border, but it now has limited room for maneuver in the face of the regime surge.<\/p>\n

\nRussia and Iran, both Damascus allies, \u201cwill act as intermediaries to ensure everybody stays on the patch they have been allocated,\u201d said geographer and Syria expert Fabrice Balanche.<\/p>\n

\nHe said incidents should not be ruled out \u201cdue to the unclear nature of the territorial boundaries and the presence on the Turkish side of uncontrollable elements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nTwo Syrian soldiers were killed near Ain Issa in artillery fire from Turkish proxies Tuesday, the Observatory said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere could be limited clashes … but no major battles,\u201d Pierret said. \u201cThe Syrian army cannot take on Turkey … The Turkish army is much better equipped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t hard to imagine how areas retaken by the regime could be used as a staging ground for YPG guerrilla operations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nThe Kurdish force could be \u201creinvented as an anti-Turkey force\u201d at Damascus and Moscow\u2019s orders. \u201cIt\u2019s a very credible scenario and could give Russia new leverage against Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMoscow is keen to avert any escalation, analysts say.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cRussia is working overtime to prevent any type of large scale conflict between Assad\u2019s forces and Turkey and its proxies,\u201d said Nick Heras from the Center for New American Security.<\/p>\n

\nTurkey together with Russia and Iran launched the so-called Astana process which provides a framework for peace talks on Syria.<\/p>\n

\nTo win support for its invasion, Turkey will need to make concessions over the Idlib region in Syria\u2019s northwest, Balanche predicted.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Russians finally agreed to this Turkish intervention in the north, in exchange for Idlib,\u201d he said, referring to the last opposition bastion in Syria, a region where Ankara has some clout but which Damascus wants to retake.<\/p>\n

\nThe strategic relationship between Ankara and Moscow goes far beyond the Syrian conflict. NATO member Turkey has ignored US warnings and acquired Russia\u2019s state-of-the-art S-400 missile defense system.<\/p>\n

\nTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected in Moscow on Thursday for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

\nPutin\u2019s office said a prior phone call between the two leaders had emphasized \u201cthe need to prevent confrontations between units of the Turkish army and Syrian armed forces.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT: A week-old Turkish invasion of northeast Syria combined with a US withdrawal have redrawn the lines and left Russian-backed Syrian regime troops and Ankara\u2019s forces standing face-to-face. Experts argue that an all-out conflict between Syrian regime forces and Turkey is unlikely but they do not rule out sporadic clashes. On Oct. 9, the Turkish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}