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Mỹ lại phản bội đồng minh của mình nữa ....

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Mỹ lại phản bội đồng minh của mình nữa ....

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  • Mỹ lại phản bội đồng minh của mình nữa ....

    <iframe width="900" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3rGQsPMdjT0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

    Sau cuộc điện đàm giữa Tổng Thống Thổ Nhỉ Kỳ Erdoğan (Turkey) và Trump tối Chúa Nhật tuần rồi. Mỹ ngoảnh mặt làm ngơ cho Thổ Nhỉ Kỳ bắt đầu tấn công vào các thành phố của sắc dân Kurds, từ ngày thứ 4 (Wednesday). Dân quân Kurds là 1 đồng minh đắc lực và can cường của Mỹ trong cuộc chiến đánh lại ISIS ở Iraq & Syria.

    Chỉ cần để lại 1 hay 2 tiểu đoàn - 1,000 hay 2,000 lính Mỹ làm "buffer" giữa quân Thổ Nhỉ Kỳ và dân quân Kurds mà Trump từ chối. Nhất định rút hết lính Mỹ ra khỏi Syria mặc cho những sự phản đối trong và ngoài nước Mỹ.

    Thật tàn ác & bất nhân quá! Một lần nữa Mỹ lại phản bội người đồng minh của mình!

    ___________


    Turkey opens ground assault on Syria's Kurds; U.S. Republicans turn on Trump
    By Mert Ozkan - Reuters

    AKCAKALE, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies attacked Kurdish militia in northeast Syria on Wednesday, pounding them with airstrikes and artillery before starting a cross-border ground operation that could transform an eight-year-old war.

    The assault began days after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled American troops out of the way, prompting denunciations from senior members of his own Republican Party who say he abandoned the Syrian Kurds, loyal allies of Washington.

    "The Turkish Armed Forces and the Syrian National Army have launched the land operation into the East of the Euphrates river as part of the Operation Peace Spring", the Turkish Defense ministry tweeted after nightfall, following a day of pounding the area from the air.

    Turkish media reported troops entering Syria at four points, two of them close to the Syrian town of Tel Abyad and two close to Ras al Ain further East.


    Turkey told the United Nations Security Council in a letter seen by Reuters that its military operation would be "proportionate, measured and responsible." The 15-member body will meet on Thursday to discuss Syria at the request of the five European members, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Poland.

    Thousands of people fled Ras al-Ain toward Hasaka province, held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Turkish airstrikes killed at least five civilians and three fighters from the SDF and wounded dozens of civilians, the SDF said.

    Reuters journalists at Akcakale on the Turkish side of the frontier watched as explosions struck Tel Abyad. After dark, the red flare of rockets could be seen fired across the border into Tel Abyad, and flames burned near the town. Explosions from Tel Abyad could be heard eight hours into the bombardment. A witness reached by telephone said civilians were fleeing en masse.

    SDF fighters repelled a ground attack by Turkish troops in Tel Abyad, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said on Twitter.

    The assault on the Kurds - for years Washington's main allies on the ground in Syria - is potentially one of the biggest shifts in years in the Syrian war that has drawn in global and regional powers. The Kurds played a leading role in capturing territory from Islamic State, and now hold the largest swathe of Syria outside of the hands of President Bashar al-Assad.

    Russia, Assad's strongest foreign ally, urged dialogue between Damascus and Syria's Kurds.

    Trump's decision to pull forces out of the way was denounced by some Kurds as a "stab in the back".

    'BAD IDEA'
    Trump called the Turkish assault a "bad idea" and said he did not endorse it. He expected Turkey to protect civilians and religious minorities and prevent a humanitarian crisis, he said.

    But one of Trump's closest fellow Republican allies, Senator Lindsey Graham, said failing to support the Kurds would be "the biggest mistake of his presidency".

    Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican hawk, said: "The U.S. is abandoning our ally the Kurds, who fought ISIS (Islamic State) on the ground and helped protect the U.S. homeland. This decision aids America’s adversaries, Russia, Iran, and Turkey, and paves the way for a resurgence of ISIS."

    Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, announcing the start of the action, said the aim was to eliminate what he called a "terror corridor" on Turkey's Southern border.

    European and Arab countries called on Ankara to halt.

    Turkey had been poised to enter northeast Syria since the U.S. troops who had been fighting alongside Kurdish-led forces against Islamic State started to leave.

    A Turkish security source told Reuters the military offensive, dubbed "Operation Peace Spring", opened with airstrikes. Turkish howitzer fire then hit bases and ammunition depots of the Kurdish YPG militia. Turkey says the YPG, the main component of the U.S.-backed SDF, is a terrorist group linked to Kurdish insurgents that have fought in Turkey for years.

    The artillery strikes, which also targeted YPG gun and sniper positions, were aimed at sites far from residential areas, the Turkish source said.

    The Turkish army has hit a total of 181 militant targets with airstrikes and howitzers since the start of the operation, the defense ministry said on Wednesday.

    Explosions also rocked the Syrian border town of Ras al-Ain, according to a reporter for CNN Turk. The sound of warplanes could be heard above and smoke rose from buildings in the town, the CNN reporter said.

    Turkish media said several mortar shells had landed on the Turkish side of the border but there were no casualties.

    WORSE TURMOIL
    World powers fear the Turkish action could open a new chapter in Syria's war and worsen regional turmoil. Ankara has said it intends to create a "safe zone" in order to return millions of refugees to Syrian soil.

    In the build-up to the offensive, Syria had said it was determined to confront any Turkish aggression.

    The SDF controls much of the territory that once was held by Islamic State and holds thousands of Islamic State fighters and tens of thousands of their relatives in detention.

    It halted operations against Islamic State because of the Turkish offensive, two U.S. officials and a Kurdish source said.

    One of the prisons where ISIS detainees are held was struck by a Turkish airstrike, the SDF said on Twitter.

    The Kurdish-led authority in northern Syria declared a state of "general mobilization" before calling on its people to head toward the border "to fulfill their moral duty and show resistance in these sensitive, historic moments".

    Erdogan's communications director Fahrettin Altun said Turkey had no ambition in northeastern Syria except to neutralize the threat against Turkish citizens and to liberate the local people from what he called "the yoke of armed thugs".

    Turkey was taking over leadership of the fight against Islamic State in Syria, he said.

    (Reporting by Mert Ozkan in AKCAKALE, Turkey; Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay in Ankara, Dominic Evans and Daren Butler in Istanbul, Tom Perry and Ellen Francis in Beirut, Phil Stewart in Washington, Maria Kiselyova in Moscow; Writing by Peter Graff and Alistair Bell; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Sonya Hepinstall and Grant McCool)

    _________________

    Why Is Turkey Fighting the Kurds in Syria?
    The New York Times Megan Specia - The New York Times

    <iframe width="900" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oi8eDtt5HPA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

    The dispute between Turkey and the Kurds has deep roots in regional power dynamics that have created a tangled web of interests. Further complicating the picture is the fact that the United States is an ally of both Turkey and the SDF, as the militia is known.

    President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said the goal of the incursion was “to destroy the terror corridor” that he said Kurdish forces were trying to establish on his country’s southern border, and to bring peace to the region.

    Leaders of the SDF and others in the region say the strikes are putting civilians at risk, and warned of an imminent humanitarian crisis. Kurdish groups on the ground shared photographs and videos of people fleeing villages as smoke rose from the site of strikes.

    To understand the current conflict requires knowing the background of the dispute between Turkey and the Kurds, and how the United States fits into the dynamic.

    Who are the Kurds?
    The Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East. Despite their numbers, they are a stateless and often marginalized people whose homeland stretches across Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia.

    After World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, many Kurds pushed for an independent Kurdish state, and promises were made in early treaties for the creation of a Kurdistan. But when the region was eventually divvied up, the nation never materialized.

    In the years since, numerous attempts at nationhood have been largely quashed.

    How does Turkey view the Kurds?
    Relations between the Turkish nation and the nationless Kurds have long been fraught.

    Turkey sees the rising power of Kurdish forces along its southern border as a threat, and Erdogan has for years made pronouncements of plans for a military intervention in the northern Syrian enclave.

    But in fact, the roots of the dispute extend much further back, and they are intrinsically tied to a domestic conflict in Turkey.

    Turkey has been in conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, since it launched a violent separatist movement in the country in the early 1980s. Both Turkey and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist organization.

    Across the border in Syria, an offshoot militia, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, has been active since 2004. The militia, known as the YPG, has long sought to form an autonomous state for the Kurds.

    The YPG and an associated militia of female fighters have been applauded by some in the West for their anti-Islamist stance. It has attracted a number of American and European volunteers to fight in its ranks during the battle against the Islamic State.

    But the militia members have deep ties to the PKK, the Kurdish group that Turkey considers a terrorist organization, though its leaders play down the links.

    Early in Syria’s civil war, the militia had early success in establishing a peaceful enclave - they called it Rojava - in the North of the country.

    The militia members eventually joined with other regional groups and grew into the SDF, which was instrumental in wresting large stretches of Syrian territory from the Islamic State, or ISIS, and ousting ISIS from its last foothold in Syria earlier this year.

    As the SDF wrested back control of towns and cities across northeastern Syria from ISIS, Kurdish power grew. And as it did, Erdogan increasingly voiced concern.

    How does the U.S. fit in?
    The Turkish operation against the Kurds in Syria has left Washington stuck between two allies.

    President Donald Trump’s announcement this week that he would be pulling troops from the country effectively greenlighted Turkey’s incursion. Erdogan has long advocated a U.S. withdrawal from Syria and has urged Trump to pull his support from the SDF, most recently in a weekend phone call.

    The United States and Turkey, which are NATO partners, have long been close allies.

    But the Kurds and the United States also have a long history of cooperation.

    The U.S.-led coalition began working with the SDF in 2015, saying the Kurdish-led group was the most capable of pushing back the Islamic State militants who had seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. This proved to be true.

    Trump further muddied the United States’ position when, after first voicing support for Erdogan’s plan, he seemed to walk back his statements in the face of objections from political allies and opponents alike.

    Trump said on Twitter: “We may be in the process of leaving Syria, but in no way have we Abandoned the Kurds, who are special people and wonderful fighters”. In a subsequent message he said that the United States was “helping the Kurds financially” and warned Turkey against unnecessary force.

    Could all this benefit ISIS?
    Possibly.

    The SDF proved a vital force in wresting back control of areas seized by ISIS militants. It also captured tens of thousands of Islamic State fighters and their families. Those people are now being held in makeshift prisons in the region being targeted by Turkey, and while Trump said he believes Turkey should be responsible for them, there are no plans for their relocation.

    While the territory of the Islamic State’s self-declared “caliphate” has been wrested from the group, the security situation in much of Syria remains tenuous.

    Some fear that destabilizing northeastern Syria will create the same power vacuum that existed before the Islamic State’s rise to power, and make way for the group to reemerge.

    Even now, despite their territorial losses, there is evidence that ISIS militants are active in Syria, said Melissa Dalton, director of the Cooperative Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

    With Turkey’s new incursion into the country, she said, the SDF is likely to turn its attention away from its old adversaries.

    “There is a very high risk of the Islamic State taking advantage of the SDF and the American and other coalition members being focused on the implications of the Turkish efforts,” she said.

    Dalton said she was also concerned about increased potential for prison breaks and unrest among detainees.

    “It’s really a recipe for disaster,” she said.

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

    © 2019 The New York Times Company


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