Turkish Military Strikes Syrian Targets

[Correction]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...110169706.html

Syrian forces have terrible fucking aim and have randomly been hitting targets inside Israel (no deaths) and Turkey (a few deaths) and I guess the Turks have had enough.

Turkish armed forces have launched artillery attacks against Syria in response to a Syrian mortar strike which killed five members of the same family in southeastern Turkey.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, said the attacks, carried out following radar tracking, were within the rules of engagement.

"There has been an attack on Turkey's mainland and its citizens lost their lives. There is definitely a response to it in international law ... We are not blinded by rage but we will protect our rights to the end in the face of such an attack on our soil that killed our people", said Bulent Arinc, Turkish deputy prime minister.

I'm sure Hilary is going to have something pointless to say within the next few hours while Iran, Russia and China do their best to keep their military contracts alive with Assad.

NATO Response: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-73F60...news_90447.htm

As stated on 26 June 2012, the Alliance continues to closely follow the situation in Syria. In view of the Syrian regime’s recent aggressive acts at NATO’s southeastern border, which are a flagrant breach of international law and a clear and present danger to the security of one of its Allies, the North Atlantic Council met today, within the framework of Article 4 of the Washington Treaty, and discussed the continuous shelling of locations in Turkey adjacent to the Turkish-Syrian border by the Syrian regime forces.

The most recent shelling on 3 October 2012, which caused the death of five Turkish citizens and injured many, constitutes a cause of greatest concern for, and is strongly condemned by, all Allies.

In the spirit of indivisibility of security and solidarity deriving from the Washington Treaty, the Alliance continues to stand by Turkey and demands the immediate cessation of such aggressive acts against an Ally, and urges the Syrian regime to put an end to flagrant violations of international law.

[Mazmaz]

whoa shit. So are they at war now? What are those "targets" that Turkey hit? Also, how does Turkey's military compare to Syria's?

[Correction]

Turkey's parliament is set to vote on mandate for 'cross border operations'

Source



Parliament shows up for work in about six hours.

[Salodin]

Does that mean we have to help turkey kill some syrians?

[Correction]

Article V was not invoked, so no.

[Byrthnoth]

Third World War totally starting!

Jiminy willikers. I sure hope they don't kill each other!

[Correction]

This will not turn into WW3, just Proxy War XXXIV between western powers and russia/china.

[Byrthnoth]

Yeah, you might even say it's a war that will take place in the Third World.

[Correction]

Turkey is pretty far from 3rd world. Please stop shitting up my thread.

[Andalusian girls]

whoa shit. So are they at war now? What are those "targets" that Turkey hit? Also, how does Turkey's military compare to Syria's?

No it's more of a 'fuck you Assad back the fuck off' move, Turkey won't confirm reports but rumor is they shelled Syrian artillery batteries directly across the border, and Turkey overawes Syria militarily. a standing military that is twice as large, better trained, better funded, and far more modern (i.e. Turkish F-16s would obliterate Syrian MiG-33s)

Adding the fact that the Syrian military is already arrayed against the insurgency Turkish military forces could punch through Syrian front-lines in days if not hours if they wanted to, but they probably do not. Turkey has moved against Assad politically but has nothing to gain with war and occupation. I imagine they will flex their muscle and project their power, but in very limited ways.

Syria has now killed five Turkish civilians and two Turkish soldiers what else could anyone expect

[Tsuneo]

I'm confused how they could accidentally mortar a country that is the complete opposite direction of Israel.

edit: I may have read it wrong. Are they intentionally hitting Turkey? That would explain why it made no sense to me before.

[Milkster]

This isn't even a joke post but who should I not like in the Middle East and why? I get confused hearing of a new conflict between two countries there every week with a superpower big brother propping them up. I'm, honestly, confused.

[Salodin]

This isn't even a joke post but who should I not like in the Middle East and why? I get confused hearing of a new conflict between two countries there every week with a superpower big brother propping them up. I'm, honestly, confused.

This

[Mayareira]

This is not the first time they "misfire", they were warned about this before. Just the first time it killed people (civilians).

Syria acts like a little kid hiding behind his big brothers and threatening around. A war between turkey and syria would be extremely one sided and result with turkish victory but turkey wouldn't want any instability in the country with the economy being very healthy compared to the world. Also, almost all of Turkey's allies are currently dealing with economic issues and they wouldn't want any instability as well.

Hundreds of people die in Syria everyday. They should really stop.

[Andalusian girls]

This isn't even a joke post but who should I not like in the Middle East and why? I get confused hearing of a new conflict between two countries there every week with a superpower big brother propping them up. I'm, honestly, confused.

almost none of the governments in the region are moral entities worth support. Lebanon (the newest and most fragile of the three), Turkey, and Israel have the distinction of being the only true democracies in the region but the former houses Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that sure seems to enjoy blowing up Synagogues while undermining the nascent democracy with regularity, and the latter both treat their ethnic minorities deplorably (Palestinians + Kurds respectively) and Israel, of course, is extremely hawkish. Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia are attempting the transition to democracy but it is still early to tell how their experiments with it shall go.

that said Assad's regime in Syria has proven exceptionally barbaric even by the standards of the region (Saudi Arabia and Iran are the only other regional powers who reach such levels of depravity) so almost anyone arrayed against them gets a thumbs up

tl;dr almost every government in the Middle East is a tyranny that violates human rights regularly and even the democracies are deeply flawed, but Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are the worst of the worst and should be despised and opposed whenever possible.

[archibaldcrane]

For a primer, Assad is definitely "the bad guy". He's slaughtering his own people in the streets with regularity for the past 6+ months and is getting propped up by the Russians because he buys a ton of weaponry from them.

The mortars hitting Turkey weren't designed for Israel - he's not attacking Israel any more than he's attacking Turkey. He's attacking his own people because they're trying to rise up and overthrow him for being a brutal dictator. Like OP said, Syrian forces have terrible aim and it's a tiny country, you don't have to miss by much to lob mortars into neighboring Israel and Turkey.

There's no way Assad wants his neighbors to act against him, he's got enough shit on his plate as it is.

[Correction]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...110169706.html

Turkey's parliament has authorised cross-border military action against Syria, if deemed necessary by the government.

The mandate, valid for one year, was passed by 320 votes in the 550-seat Turkish parliament, the Anatolia news agency reported on Thursday.

Besir Atalay, Turkey's deputy prime minister, said authorising the use of force in Syria was not a declaration of war but was intended as a deterrent.

The vote came as Turkey resumed shelling Syrian government military positions on Thursday morning in retaliation for a mortar attack which landed over its border in southeastern Turkey killing five of its citizens - a woman and four children from the same family.

"The Syrian side has admitted what it did and apologised," Atalay said.

Turkish state media said that the attacks by artillery units based in the border town of Akcakale were continuing.

Several Syrian troops were killed as a result of overnight Turkish shelling at a base near the Syrian border town of Tal al-Abyad, a UK-based Syrian activist group said.

An aide to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, said on Thursday that his country had no intention of declaring war on Syria, pointing out that the shelling - now in its second day - should be seen as a "warning" to the authorities in Damascus.

"Turkey has no interest in a war with Syria. But Turkey is capable of protecting its borders and will retaliate when necessary," Ibrahim Kalin, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Erdogan, said on his Twitter account.

Not all out war, but armed escalation and a 1-year mobilization to respond to any further Syrian provocation means the very brink of it.

[Churchill]

Is this really about mortars being launched? The range on mortars is really small, there's really no way to miss.

Artillery is a different story, but would vary by piece and would also require a large amount of faith to believe they were just overshot or used the wrong charge.

[Xno Kappa]

I'm guessing artillery because no way in hell mortars have that kind of range along with a blast radius to do any significant damage. Artillery also suggests either deliberate intent or huge negligence on the Syrian side, either way Turkey has a right to be pissed.

[noblemountain]

Nothing is unintentional.