Stray bullets from Syria kill two Turkish citizens

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: Reuters

One man and a 15-year-old boy were killed when they were hit by stray bullets from Syria in the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, Turkish security sources and health officials said on Wednesday.

The incident, which happened on Tuesday, was the most serious spillover of violence into Turkey in weeks and highlights the growing concern that Syria's civil war is dragging in neighboring states.

The bullets came from the adjacent Syrian town of Ras-al Ain, where Kurdish fighters have been battling Islamist anti-government rebels since Tuesday. Ceylanpinar, in southeastern Sanliurfa province, sits just across the border from Ras al-Ain.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/17/us-syria-crisis-turkey-idUSBRE96G0DB20130717

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The Kurds have been some of the US's best allies in Iraq and here they are fighting our jihadist of the Free Syrian Army. I would love to see the State Departments and DOD's game plan for the region. It seems contradictory and a waste of lives and money.

Related: the CIA helping Hezbollah.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023281534

[Joe Hyperion]

1. The sad part is that nobody knows who the shooters are

Tracking down the weapons would be nearly impossible.

[Sand Wind]

2. Liban, Syria, Iraq, turkey, ...

Al that mess,

Just because you don't care.

Because you are traumatized by the Bush's period.

What a mess Cheney have made !

[Jesus Malverde]

3. Turkey fires into Syria after stray bullet from battle across border kill 1 Turkish teenager

The growing phenomenon of rebel-on-rebel violence has sapped strength from the broader opposition movement to Syrian President Bashar Assad, underscoring the rebels' inability to unite around a common command and for Assad's deeply divided political opponents in the Western-backed opposition group to unify their platforms.

A Turkish official said the 17-year-old boy was killed in the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar by a stray bullet on Tuesday while another teenager was in a hospital in serious condition. The official from the Ceylanpinar mayor's office spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The Turkish military said in a brief statement that it fired into Syria in retaliation to shots fired into Turkey, including several that hit a police station in Ceylanpinar. It gave no further detail on the attack but the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency said the military fired artillery at an area in Ras al-Ayn. The official in Ceylanpinar said the military targeted PYD gunmen but had no information on any casualties or damage.

Turkey was once a close Syrian ally, but turned into one of Syrian President Bashar Assad regime's harshest critics and is a key supporter Syrian rebels. Turkey has repeatedly struck back at the Syrian territory in response to shelling, mortar rounds or fire from across the border since shells from Syria struck a Turkish village in October, killing five people.

The Observatory said members of jihadi groups had to withdraw from Ras al-ayn to nearby villages. It said Kurdish gunmen captured a number of fighters in the area.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/17/turkey-fires-into-syria-after-stray-bullet-from-battle-across-border-kill-1

[Sand Wind]

4. Fox News ? I hope they do....nt

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. "Stray Rebels Coddled By Turkey Kill Thousands of Syrian Citizens" n/t

[Jesus Malverde]

6. Makes you wonder who the turks were shooting at, the jihadist or the Kurds.

I suspect the Kurds.

[Socal31]

7. All I can envision are scenes from the Balkans in the early 90s.

How do you confirm they are "stray"?

[happyslug]

8. And Kurds in Turkey are considered TERROROIST by the US

The Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) is still on the US Department of State List of Terrorist organizations:
http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers'_Party

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/30/us-turkey-kurds-idUSBRE95S0DE20130630
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/pkk-starts-withdrawal-turkey_n_3237178.html

As to Iraq, the Kurds have NOT been good allies of the US. There were so busy driving out Arabs and Turks from Northwestern Iraq, that the US did not have to worry about them fighting the US since we invaded Iraq. The biggest fear was the Turks would move in against them, something the US did not want and had a hard time convincing Turkey NOT to do (and concerns about the Kurds seems to have been the reason the Turks refused to assist the US, when the US invaded Iraq).

Prior to the US invasion if Iraq but Post Desert Storm, the Kurds in Iraq were protected by US Air Cover, but them proceeded to assist both the PKK in Turkey and terrorists operating in Iran. At one time the Turks and Iranians were discussing a joint invasion, but the US managed to talk them out of it (the US paid them both off, the US did not want to been seen as NOT have complete control over Iraq while it was fighting the Sunni tribes of Iraq).

In Iraq, the Kurds were good allies of the US, just like the Soviet Union was a good ally against Hitler, it was to their advantage nothing more (i.e. the enemy of your enemy is your friend).

Remember, while most of what is considered Kurdistan is in Turkey, the second largest part is in Iraq, followed by Iran and Syria. The Kurds would like to have all four sections under their own rule. The US does NOT want Turkey broken up, so Kurdish independence is NOT a factor.

Side note: If Kurdistan ever becomes independent, Turkey will revert to the Asia Minor borders of the Byzantine Empire after the Arab Conquest. The Turks object to that for it would be smaller then Greece (through larger in land mass, Greece has almost all of the Islands in the Aegean sea). The dispute between Greece and Turkey has been mostly nationalistic since the 1830s (with religious over tones, Turkey being Moslem, while Greece is Orthodox Christian) and such a lost of Territory would hurt Turkey's self image as the bigger power when it comes to Greece. Greece maintain (and with some evidence to support them) that Turkey along the Aegean Sea was mostly Greek prior to WWI and should be made part of Greece for that reason. The Turks said the area was mostly Turkish at that time and it was the Greeks who invaded that part of Turkey after WWI and tried to drive out the Turks living there. There appears to be some truth to both sides. It appears as you near the coast, prior to WWI, it became more and more Greek, but as you went inland it became more and more Turkish. Thus both were right, but only to a degree. After the Turks beat back the Greeks (who had been abandoned by the WWI allies) the area was depopulated of Greeks (most going to present day Greece) AND then Greeks from other areas of present day Turkey were also removed (mostly along the Northern Coast of Asia Minor). This dispute has festered ever since, in fact most of the Support for the Kurds in the 1970s till 2000 was from the Greeks. Yes, both Turkey and Greece are members of NATO, but that does not mean they like each other.

This side note is to show that you often can not view something in isolation, you often have to look at the wider picture. In the case of the Kurds that include looking at Iran, Syria, Turkey and even Greece.

More on Greek expulsions from Turkey:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%931922)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide

Note, the Turks did NOT adopt a true anti-Greek position till after 1900, as the world entered WWI, this hardened and you started to see massive expulsions and genocide done by the Turks against non-Turks in Asia Minor (Mostly Greeks and Armenians). This was well known to the Greeks before they invaded Asia Minor in 1919 and is the best explanation for War Crimes the Greeks did at that time. When the Turks drove the Greeks out of Asia Minor, they resumed their Greek Expulsion policies, This lasted till 1922, by when Asia Minor had become almost all Turkish for the Greeks and Armenians who have lived their for at least the previous 3000 year had been driven out. Thus the fight was NOT religious but nationalistic, through given the traditional religion of the Greeks and Armenians it had huge Religious symbolism.

The Kurds, the third Minority (Behind the Majority Turks, and the Minorities Greeks and Armenians) in Asia Minor where simply classified as "Turks" as far as the Central Government was concerned. That they were NOT Turks did not impress the Central Government who proceeded to treat them as Turks and did they best to make them "Good Turks". Against this policy the Kurds have fought against over the last 40-50 years. Note it is related to the early Greek and Armenians expulsions, for the Ruling Turkish elite want Turkey to be one "People" and that "People" is the "Turkish People". Non-Turks need not apply, and if a Citizen of Turkey, be prepared to embraced the idea of being "Turkish".

This concept was common in Europe before WWI. Poles living in Germany were taught that they were Germans. Slavs living in Italian Alps were taught they were invaders unless they embraced being Italians. Russia tried to get all of the Slavic People to look to it for "Leadership" and "Protection". Prior to the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, Germans living in Alsace Lorraine were told to give up their native language of German and speak French (Germany reversed this after 1871, but France again reversed it in 1918).

After WWI The Southern Slavs were taught they should think like the Serbs, who were the largest single Minority in Yugoslavia, thus down playing that they were Slovens, Croats or Hungarians. Thus the Turks were NOT the only country playing unity of people and nation as one and the same (Stalin, post WWII, ordered almost all of the Germans out of East Prussia and that part of Germany East of the Oder and moved in Poles so the area would no longer be the over lap of Poles and Germans it had been for at least 1000 years). Ethnic cleaning is not new, but the Turks did take it to an extreme for the Ottoman Empire had never been an Empire based on Nationality, but one of Religion and toleration of local religions. Thus Asia Minor, while Turkish for at least the previous 600 years, had NEVER been 100% Turkish. That was NOT a goal of the Ottoman Empire, but it became the goal of the Turkish elite as the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Thus the expulsions of the Greeks and Armenians during and after WWI, it was policy. The same goes for the Kurds being told be become "Turks" it was and is Turkish Policy.

[Jesus Malverde]

9. Thats a lot of good information.

Do you think the kurds deserve their own country or should they focus on integration with their respective states.

Just read yesterday, was surprised to learn that Turkey has the second largest army in NATO after the US.

[happyslug]

10. The Turks have always had the second largest Army, Germany was and is #3,

Last edited Thu Jul 18, 2013, 05:48 PM - Edit history (2)

France is #4 (through #3, in the days BEFORE West Germany had an army, i.e. pre 1954 and a close #4 till German Unification).

As to the Kurds having thier own nation, lets look at the Kurdish speaking area of the Middle East:







You also have to understand Kurdish is an Iranian language group, like Fashi (The main langage of Iran) and Pashtho (the main language of Afghanistan). Thus they haye have more in common with Iran then Turkey and Iraq. Furthermore most people in Iraq like along the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, which except for their headwaters is NOT in Kurdistan.




Thus an argument can be made for Kurdish independence, or at least affiliation with Iran, based on Language (Through most Kurds are Sunni not the Shitte Moslem that dominate Iran).

Thus a good argument can be made for an independent Kurdish state. As far as Iran and Iraq are concerned, that would be a problem, but a minor problem they could live with. Iraq does not care about anything other then around the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, and most Kurds only live on the headwaters of those rivers. Iran views the Kurds as a division of Iranians but being on the border something that can be part of Iran or not part of Iran,

The big problem is Turkey. Most Kurds live under Turkish rule. Prior to WWI, the Kurds was ruled by the Turks but their interaction was more with the Armenians then the Turks (Both being under Ottoman Rule at that time). When the Turks drove out the Armenians and the Greeks the Kurds interacted with (who tended to live along the Black Sea Coasts), it broke up trade patterns that had developed over centuries. Kurds tended to live in areas with less water then the Armenians and Pontus Greeks, thus used less farming and more pasture living. Since the Turks always saw themselves as herders due to the fact the Turks of the Middle ages had been herders, and that is how the first Turks entered Asia Minor in the middle ages, they saw the Kurds as fellow "Turks" for the Kurds did not like the then Shiite dominated Government of Iran (Shiites have dominated Iran since at the 1500s).

Since the 1500s the Kurds have shifted from rule by Iran or Turkey, with occasion Independence (See 1835 Map).


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kurdish_states_1835.png

As you can see Kurdistan has been an area fought over between Turkey and Iran for the last 500 years (and before that date, both the Mongol Empire;s and then Timerlane's Conquest of Persia made Iran part of those empires).

The big area for the Turks is the lost of a Strategic back area in regards to any fight with the Greeks AND the lost of territory to Iran. In many ways Turkey's big fear is a joint Greek and Iranian a Thus the ttack on Turkey. Having Kurdistan gives Turkey some strategic death to maintain options, without Kurdistan Turkey could fall very quickly to just a joint attack.

Thus the issue is NOT if an independent Kurdistan be good for th e Kurds, but will it be acceptable to the Turks? I have my doubts to the Turks ever permitting the Kurds to leave.