Turkey v. Syria and Iran in Kurd territory.
Syria's messy war is becoming even messier. On Tuesday, pro-regime militias reportedly moved into the embattled enclave of Afrin, which is under siege from Turkish forces who invaded Syria last month. The regime units appeared to be reinforcing Syrian Kurdish factions that have controlled the area near the Turkish border, much to the frustration of Ankara.Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would begin a heavy assault on the city center of Afrin in coming days. He described the Syrian government's move as the work of “terrorists” and claimed Turkish artillery had driven the pro-Assad forces back. Syrian sources claim that the barrage only briefly stalled the advance of the pro-Assad forces.Read the entire article at the link.If that is the case, we are seeing Turkey and its rebel allies potentially squaring off against pro-Assad militias that are linked to Iran and are operating in tandem with Syrian Kurdish units friendly with the United States — which opposes both the Assad government and Iran's presence in Syria. It is the sort of bewildering entanglement that characterizes the ruinous seven-year conflict, its constellation of warring parties and their tangled sets of interests.
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