It seems to me a little unlikely that the Baghdad government did not in fact know about a whole Turkish tank regiment north of Mosul all this time, but that as long as its presence wasn’t a big talking point in the Iraqi press, it was sanguine about it.
More a company (150 men, 20-odd tanks) than a regiment (3000-6000 men). But it indicates that the Turks have gone from trainers to actual fighters. Which does raise the question of what they're up to.
(And it is very curious - the Turks could move tanks and men against Daesh in a border-crossing move into north central Syria, in between the western and eastern Kurdish areas, into an area full of Turkomen. (Specifically, the border crossing points of Jarabulus and al-Ra'i, moving towards Manbij.) But not a sound. Which is curious given that has to be Daesh's main supply route to the outside world.
(Daesh has only two other 'exits' from Syria/Iraq to the outside world - the Al-Tanf-Al-Walid crossing into western Anbar, and from there into Jordan via Highway 1/Route 10. And the Al-Judayyiddah crossing from Anbar into Saudi Arabia. Neither of those two routes should be able to carry the traffic needed to supply Raqqa & friends with ammunition and oil sales profits, particularly if American aircraft are patrolling overhead. Which they should be, if they aren't already.)
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), an ethnic superprovince of Iraq in the northeast, which is semi-autonomous, no longer has a border with Iraq proper, only with Daesh.
Well, yeah, the nation of Iraq as a unified multi-ethnic state has ceased to exist. The curious thing is that the Turks were threatening war with Syria over the PKK prior to 2011, and threatened war on several occasions against Iraqi Kurds prior to American withdrawal, if I remember correctly. So apparently the Turks have gotten over their anti-Kurdish impulses in Iraq. (But it makes me wonder if the Turks made the Iraqi Kurds an offer they couldn't refuse.)
I'm inclined to suspect that the government in Iraq simply doesn't have a very good idea what's going on in Kurdistan, given that they are physically cut off from travel except through the high mountains of Iran. If the Kurds want to conduct their own national policy (or are forced to), there's nothing to stop them.
Very curious that the Turks are willing to both train and support the Kurds with their own troops to fight Daesh when they have been entirely unwilling to intervene in Daesh-controlled territory in northern Syria.
It seems to me a little unlikely that the Baghdad government did not in fact know about a whole Turkish tank regiment north of Mosul all this time, but that as long as its presence wasn’t a big talking point in the Iraqi press, it was sanguine about it.
More a company (150 men, 20-odd tanks) than a regiment (3000-6000 men). But it indicates that the Turks have gone from trainers to actual fighters. Which does raise the question of what they're up to.
(And it is very curious - the Turks could move tanks and men against Daesh in a border-crossing move into north central Syria, in between the western and eastern Kurdish areas, into an area full of Turkomen. (Specifically, the border crossing points of Jarabulus and al-Ra'i, moving towards Manbij.) But not a sound. Which is curious given that has to be Daesh's main supply route to the outside world.
(Daesh has only two other 'exits' from Syria/Iraq to the outside world - the Al-Tanf-Al-Walid crossing into western Anbar, and from there into Jordan via Highway 1/Route 10. And the Al-Judayyiddah crossing from Anbar into Saudi Arabia. Neither of those two routes should be able to carry the traffic needed to supply Raqqa & friends with ammunition and oil sales profits, particularly if American aircraft are patrolling overhead. Which they should be, if they aren't already.)
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), an ethnic superprovince of Iraq in the northeast, which is semi-autonomous, no longer has a border with Iraq proper, only with Daesh.
Well, yeah, the nation of Iraq as a unified multi-ethnic state has ceased to exist. The curious thing is that the Turks were threatening war with Syria over the PKK prior to 2011, and threatened war on several occasions against Iraqi Kurds prior to American withdrawal, if I remember correctly. So apparently the Turks have gotten over their anti-Kurdish impulses in Iraq. (But it makes me wonder if the Turks made the Iraqi Kurds an offer they couldn't refuse.)
I'm inclined to suspect that the government in Iraq simply doesn't have a very good idea what's going on in Kurdistan, given that they are physically cut off from travel except through the high mountains of Iran. If the Kurds want to conduct their own national policy (or are forced to), there's nothing to stop them.
Very curious that the Turks are willing to both train and support the Kurds with their own troops to fight Daesh when they have been entirely unwilling to intervene in Daesh-controlled territory in northern Syria.
max
['Bothersome development.']