Turkish soldiers in friendly encounter with ISIS

NATO ally meanwhile to train 'moderates' to fight jihadists

Turkish soldiers and ISIS jihadists bid farewell to each other in a screenshot from a Kurdish news video (courtesy Middle East Media Research Institute)

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon says NATO-member Turkey will train “moderate” fighters to confront the ISIS jihadist forces in Iraq and Syria, but a new video showing Turkish soldiers in apparent solidarity with ISIS fighters affirms concerns that Ankara is playing both sides.
The video, released by the Kurdish news agency DIHA and translated by Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, shows Turkish soldiers and ISIS fighters “bidding each other farewell.”
MEMRI said Turkish “support for ISIS gangs, which is constantly on the international agenda, has been documented once again.”
The close support for ISIS, MEMRI said, contrasts with the treatment of dozens of civilians from the besieged town of Kobane, on the Turkish-Syrian border, who have been made to wait for hours by Turkish border soldiers “and have lost their lives as a result.”
Under the title “Intimate meetings between Turkish soldiers and ISIS,” the video shows five ISIS members arriving at the border where citizens of Kobane have left their vehicles. The ISIS members “burn the property” of the Kobane citizens, before taking away anything useful in the cars and heading toward the village of Siftek, which is under their control.
DIHA said two ISIS members then come to the border and talk to seven Turkish soldiers, who get out of an armored vehicle.
After about half an hour, they “say farewell to each other and leave the area.”
“While what was said in the conversation is not known, the gangs (ISIS members) who said farewell to the soldiers will be preparing to perpetrate fresh massacres,” DIHA said.



Brigades
In an off-the-record news conference, a Pentagon spokesman said a large number of the “moderate” fighters will need to be trained. But he offered neither numbers nor a timetable to confront ISIS fighters, who continue to gain territory in Iraq and Syria, despite the U.S.-led coalition’s aerial bombing of their positions in both countries.
Pressed to give a number, the spokesman referred to reports that as many as six brigades of fighters would need to be trained.
A U.S. Army brigade is comprised of 3,200 to 4,000 soldiers and is roughly equivalent to a regiment. Three or more brigades constitute a division. In effect, the Pentagon’s intent is to train what amounts to some two divisions of “moderate” Syrian opposition fighters.
The Obama administration already has announced that up to 5,000 Syrian opposition forces would be trained in Saudi Arabia over a period of a year.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded in a Pentagon briefing last week that the U.S. hasn’t yet begun to vet Syrian rebels for the anti-ISIS army in Syria.
Turning to ISIS
The projected level of “moderate” fighters came as the U.N. revealed in a report that some 15,000 jihadists from 80 countries have flooded into Syria since 2010 to fight ISIS.
The report characterized the influx as “an unprecedented scale,” including “countries that have not previously faced challenges relating to al-Qaida.”
The U.N. report, put out by a committee of the U.N. Security Council, did not identify the 80 countries.
It added it was uncertain whether or not foreign fighters also were joining al-Qaida, even though al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri “appears to be maneuvering for relevance.”
The report said the decline of al-Qaida in recent years has resulted in jihadists turning to other groups, mainly ISIS.
“Al-Qaida core and ISIS pursue similar strategic goals, albeit with tactical differences regarding sequencing and substantive differences about personal leadership,” the U.N. report said.
It underscored warnings that foreign fighters could return from the war zones in Syria and Iraq to undertake attacks in their homelands.
ISIS split earlier this year from al-Qaida over policy differences between Zawahiri and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared a caliphate over the territory that his fighters took in Syria and Iraq.
Ambiguity
Besides Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon spokesman said Turkey similarly would train Syrian opposition fighters.
The foreign fighters joining ISIS, however, use Turkey as the primary route into Syria. Turkey allows ISIS fighters to go back and forth from Turkey into Syria and continues to buy below-market-price oil from ISIS-occupied areas of Syria and Iraq.
In addition, the Turkish government is encouraging its businesses to invest in ISIS-occupied areas of Iraq.
Turkey, along with Saudi Arabia and the other Arab countries that belong to the U.S.-led coalition have made it clear that their primary aim in supporting Syrian opposition fighters is not to eliminate the threat from ISIS but to oust the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Shiite-Alawite who is allied with Shiite Iran.
The apparent conflict in objectives of the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition has thrown into question the Obama administration’s endgame, since it already has declared eliminating the ISIS threat is the aim not Assad.
The ambiguity also comes as some 200 so-called moderate Syrian opposition fighters joined the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra Front last weekend, raising concerns over how the Obama administration intends to sift through the various factions of jihadist fighters to distinguish loyalty to fight ISIS.

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