The Syrian news agency SANA has confirmed that the Turkish army have entered Syria with 12 armored pickup trucks with machine guns and more than a hundred military mercenaries.
The Syrian Foreign Minister hasn’t given any more information about the invasion.
Дамаск заявил о вхождении турецких военных в Сирию https://t.co/LBxx2iIzTu
— Новости ДОЖДЯ (@tvrain_live) February 14, 2016
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#Breaking Several mortars reportedly impacted the vicinity of the Russian embassy in Damascus #Syria
— Michael Horowitz (@michaelh992) February 14, 2016
Earlier in the day the Turkish military began shelling Kurdish targets near the city of Azaz in northwestern Syria.
We will bring you more on this story as it develops.
According to Shanghaidaily.com:
Turkey has allowed 350 armed rebels to enter, through its borders, into the northern province of Aleppo to take part in defending a key Syrian border town from the Syrian military offensive, a monitor group reported on Sunday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Turkish authorities allowed 350 Syria rebels with light and heavy arms to move from Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib through the Turkish borders, namely the Atamah military crossing, into Syria’s northern province of Aleppo to take part in defending the strategic border town of Tal Rifat from the approaching Syrian military forces.
The UK-based watchdog group said Turkey allowed the rebels to move through its territories and further supervised their movement from the countryside of Idlib to the northern countryside of Aleppo.
It said that 15 militant groups were killed Sunday in the battles around Tal Rifat, adding that the Russian warplanes carried out 18 airstrikes against rebel-held in Tal Rifat.
The Syrian army and the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces were approaching the strategic town after dislodging the rebels from key areas in northern Aleppo, as part of the crushing offensive it carried out in Aleppo and the northwestern province of Latakia to close the borders with Turkey, from which much of the militants and their arms come into the war-torn country.
The Syrian government has always accused Turkey of facilitating the flow of jihadists into Syria. It’s latest accusation was made on Sunday, when it condemned the Turkish shelling of Kurdish areas in northern Syria.
Turkish latest move aims apparently to bring to a halt the Kurdish progress toward Tal Rifat and to prop up the militants it backs in northern Syria.
SANA reports:
“Turkish artillery shelling of Syrian territory constitutes direct support to the armed terrorist organizations,” the Ministry told the UN Secretary General and the Security Council’s Chairman in two letters addressed to both officials.
It was referring to shelling by Turkish artillery based inside Turkish territory of Syrian land targeting Syrian Kurds and Syrian army sites.
The attack was launched on Saturday afternoon and continued on as the Turkish artillery also targeted the civilian populated villages of Maranaz, al-Malkieh, Minnegh, Ein Daqneh and Bazi, according to the letters.
The shelling came in response to the Syrian Arab army’s advance on military fronts in the northern countryside of Aleppo province and in a bid to boost the morale of the armed terrorist organizations, the Ministry clarified.
It went on citing Turkish attacks in more Syrian areas on the same day, saying that 12 pickups with DShK and 14.5 mm machine guns mounted on them had their way from the Turkish land into Syrian territory across Bab al-Salameh border crossing.
The Ministry noted that the pickups were accompanied with 100 gunmen, some of them are believed to be Turkish soldiers and Turkish mercenaries, adding that munitions supply operations into the Syrian Aazaz area continue.
The Turkish attacks, the letters said, were coupled with statements made by the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that confirmed Turkey’s blatant intervention in the Syrian affair and the continued Turkish support to Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Jabha al-Shamiya, Ahrar al-Sham and other al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organizations.
These statements, the Ministry said, officially attested to the Turkish regime’s premeditated acts of violating the Security Council’s resolutions related to combating terrorism.
The Ministry referred in its letters to the chiefs of the UN and the Security Council to the “irresponsible” actions of the Turkish regime that caused the recent Geneva intra-Syrian meeting to fail.
The Syrian government expresses strong condemnation of Turkey’s repeated attacks on the Syrian people and its transgression into the Syrian territory, calling these attacks “a gross violation” of the Syrian sovereignty and a flagrant breach of the UN Charter’s objectives and principles, the rules of the international law and the Security Council’s counterterrorism resolutions, the letters said.
Syria, however, stresses that it will maintain its legitimate right to respond to the Turkish crimes and attacks and to claim compensation for the damage caused, the letters added.
The Ministry also conveyed the Syrian government’s call on the Security Council to assume its responsibility to put an end to the Turkish regime’s classified crimes against the Syrian people and its repeated attacks against Syrian territory.
The government also demanded, according to the letters, that the Security Council work to compel the countries backing terrorism, including Turkey, to comply with its relevant resolutions on fighting terrorism and bring them to account for their unlimited support to the terrorist groups.
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
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