Tensions spike as Turkish convoy enters northwest Syria

A Turkish military convoy crossed into jihadist-run northwest Syria Monday, sending tensions soaring between Damascus and rebel-backer Ankara which said its forces were targeted with an air strike. The Syrian government reacted angrily after the convoy entered Idlib province and headed towards a key town where regime forces are waging fierce battles with jihadists and rebels.

After eight years of civil war, the jihadist-run Idlib region on the border with Turkey is the last major stronghold of opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The region of some three million people was supposed to be protected by a Turkish-Russian buffer zone deal signed last year, but instead regime and Russian forces have upped their deadly bombardment of the bastion since late April. Following days of inching forward on the ground, Russian-backed regime forces on Sunday took control of the edges of the town of Khan Sheikhun in the south of the stronghold.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, reported Syrian and Russian air strikes aimed at hindering the convoy’s advance through Idlib province. Turkey’s defence ministry “strongly” condemned the attack, which it said had killed three civilians and wounded 12. “Despite repeated warnings we made to the authorities of the Russian Federation, the military operations by the regime forces continue in Idlib region in violation of the existing memorandums and agreements with the Russian Federation,” it said in a statement.

The Damascus regime meanwhile denounced the convoy’s crossing over from Turkey. “Turkish vehicles loaded with munitions... are heading towards Khan Sheikhun to help the terrorists,” a foreign ministry source said, using the regime’s blanket term for Turkish-backed rebels and jihadists. This confirmed “the support provided by the Turkish regime to terrorist groups,” state news agency SANA reported the source as saying.

Rebel killed

Yesterday afternoon, a correspondent saw the convoy stop on the Aleppo-Damascus highway in the village of Maar Hattat, just north of Khan Sheikhun. Warplanes and helicopter machine guns targeted nearby areas, he said. Earlier, a Russian air strike hit the rebel vehicle leading the convoy just outside Maaret al-Noman, 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of Khan Sheikhun, killing a Turkish-backed fighter from the Faylaq al-Sham group, the Britain-based Observatory said.

After the convoy made it inside the town, Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted its outskirts in an apparent “attempt to prevent the convoy from advancing”, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. On Sunday, pro-regime forces backed by Russian air strikes took control of Khan Sheikhun’s northwestern outskirts. Fighting continues to the east and west of the town, the Observatory says.

Any seizure of Khan Sheikhun and territory further east would encircle a patch of countryside to its south, including the town of Morek that is home to a key Turkish observation post. It would also see the regime secure a position on a key highway connecting government-held Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, which the regime retook from rebels in December 2016.