Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet

[ingemann]

As many people have said "Allahu akbar" is used by most Muslim Arabs, so these rebels could be secular Muslims. Of course they're not, people can read up on this groups conquest of the Armenian populated coastal city of Kessab, where they vandalised Churches and force converted the few old people who stayed back. They're not ISIS bad, but they're not secular or even moderate.

[ingemann]

As many people have said "Allahu akbar" is used by most Muslim Arabs, so these rebels could be secular Muslims. Of course they're not, people can read up on this groups conquest of the Armenian populated coastal city of Kessab, where they vandalised Churches and force converted the few old people who stayed back. They're not ISIS bad, but they're not secular or even moderate.

Do you know what "Allahu akbar" means? I assume you do, but I was just wondering.

God (Allah) is Great. But here's the thing I know a great number of atheists who use the word God or religious terms in common speech.

[ingemann]

This is not good news. It is, of course, bad news. Why would anybody want to get into a war with Russia? That makes no sense.

Turkey claim that the population in the area Russia bomb are Turkmens (common name for Turks in Levant and Mesopotania). Of course that's not the real reason, the Turks want to stop the Russian bombings, because if the regime reconquer the area, the rebels lose easy access to Turkey, instead they have to go through mountains, making the access much harder.



If they lose access to Turkey, they lose access to supplies and recruits (not many anymore, as most Sunni foreign fighters tend to join ISIS today, but it would still be a disaster), and they're already lacking recruits.

If that happens Turkey lose its last influence on the conflict, they can't open use ISIS as their actor, the Kurds and Kurdish align rebels are for logical reason not a option either. So if this happen, Turkey will become mostly irrelevant, which are also why Turkey are trying to found a new "Turkmen" group as their representants

[ingemann]

As many people have said "Allahu akbar" is used by most Muslim Arabs, so these rebels could be secular Muslims. Of course they're not, people can read up on this groups conquest of the Armenian populated coastal city of Kessab, where they vandalised Churches and force converted the few old people who stayed back. They're not ISIS bad, but they're not secular or even moderate.

Do you know what "Allahu akbar" means? I assume you do, but I was just wondering.

God (Allah) is Great. But here's the thing I know a great number of atheists who use the word God or religious terms in common speech.

Even Arab Christians say "Allah" when talking about god. By itself it means nothing.

Yes through Christian Arabs doesn't use the chant "Allahu Akbar". Of course that doesn't change the fact that these rebels, have shown through their action elsewhere, that they're Islamist, and not the cuddly kind of Islamists.

BTW here's a link to their behaviour in Kessab http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11323109/Dispatch-Syria-rebels-burned-down-churches-and-destroyed-Christian-graves.html.

[ingemann]

So, just an observation, looking at the Turkish map that's been published, it looks like the incident occurred in the Northwest corner of the country, not far from Jisr ash-Shughur. That's hardly an ISIL-friendly or ISIL-controlled area, and is mostly under the control of the FSA with some pockets of al-Nusra Front support. Granted, it's not far from the Russian base in Latakia, but what were their planes doing circling that area in the first place?

Russia has dropped more bombs on the Free Syrian Army than ISIS, so this wouldn't be anything new. It's not surprising that the moderate rebels and Russia don't get along well.

This is from early October, so things might have slightly changed since then:

The Free Syrian Army is even worse than ISIS, considering that they are fighting the only government in Syria that can hold back ISIS.

'Tis a shame Turkey is in NATO, because I hope Putin brings the boot down on that prick Erdogan.

Which is more useful to control Syria?

The neighbour or a distant neighbour?

Also, note than Putin mostly bomb FSA, not ISIS. It's normal, his goal isn't to defeat ISIS, it's to defeat FSA so the only oppisition on Assad is ISIS, forcing the West to back his dictator pal Assad (between dictators, they help each other).

Stop being so naive about the new, rebranded USSR.

Okay people try look at the pretty colours on the map. Could there be one very logical reason why a regime and its supporters whose powerbase is on the coast primarily attack the rebels who threaten the coast? There's no greater conspiracy in why Assad's regime and its allies, focus on the enemies who are closest rather than enemy who's in the other side of the country.

I'm no great military expect, but honestly people there's nothing suspect or conspiratorial about, Assad's, Iran's and Russia's behaviour, they fight the enemies who are the biggest threats to the regime. While ignoring the enemies, who are unable to threaten the regime, it's also why ISIS have been attacked at Palmyra and east of Aleppo, because it's the only places they threaten the regime (plus east of Aleppo the regime needed to connect to a base, which was surronded by ISIS, where the local pro-Assad bureaucrats and their families had fled to, earlier in the war). It's also why you don't see Russian attacks in the south, as the FSA and Al-nusra rebels there aren't a threat to the regime.