Turkish F16s force Syrian flight from Moscow to land. Ankara: Syrian air space no longer safe
Turkish F16s force Syrian flight from Moscow to land. Ankara: Syrian air space no longer safe.
DEBKAfile Special Report October 10, 2012, 10:08 PM (GMT+02:00)
Turkish air force jets forced a Syrian 35-passenger Airbus A320 bound from Moscow to Damascus to land in Ankara Wednesday night, Oct. 10, on suspicion it was carrying arms.
Its cargo compartment was subjected to checks by Turkish officials. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke of information that it may be carrying “certain equipment in breach of civil aviation rules.”
At the same time, the Turkish foreign ministry released this statement: “All civilian flights in Syrian airspace have been stopped since it is not safe.” TRT television said a Turkish plane that had already taken off for Saudi Arabia made a detour and landed at a Turkish airport.
debkafile’s military sources: By forcing down the Syrian airbus, Ankara has signaled Damascus that it will henceforth stop civilian air traffic flying through Syrian air space. There is still a question about whether Turkey will extend this aerial blockade to Syrian military air traffic. Furthermore, Iranian civilian aircraft have been running an almost daily airlift of military and logistical equipment from Tehran to Damascus. The new Turkish step, to which Damascus has not yet responded, may portend a clash between Turkey and Iran in the skies over Syria.
Our sources add: The Erdogan government, in defiance of the Obama administration’s wishes, looks like moving towards imposing its own unilateral protected no-fly zone over Syria to break out of the stalemate of the 18-month civil war.
They do not rule out the possibility that more anti-Assad governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf emirates may send air strength to back up Turkey’s opening move.
To discuss this, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan paid an unannounced visit to Doha and went straight into a meeting with the Qatari ruler, Emir al-Thani.
Stopping a Syrian plane from Moscow was also a Turkish message to the Russians to stay out of the conflict now in full spate between Ankara and Damascus and not interfere in any no-fly zone. The Russians have not so far commented on the incident.
For the past two days, Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Ozel Necdet, has been touring his forces along the Syrian border to inspect their readiness for a full-scale clash with Syria. Military sources in Ankara also disclosed that at least 25 F16 fighter jets had been transferred to the Diyarbakir air base near the Syrian border.
It now transpires that this transfer was planned as part of the operation to close Syrian air space.
Earlier, Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that American troops are helping build a headquarters in Jordan to bolster its military capabilities in case violence spills over from Syria.
WarSclerotic 
October 10, 2012 at 10:32 PM
1 step closer…
October 11, 2012 at 4:12 AM
Agreed.
I kinda/sorta know what’s happening over there, but what bothers me is that I don’t have a freaking clue about the motives. NATO was in it up to their ears in Libya — why? I don’t have a clue. And what has the European part of that organization to gain by encouraging Turkey’s edging into war is totally beyond me.
Putting on my tin foil hat, Turkey’s goal could be as simple as reconstituting the Ottoman Empire. You’ve got to start somewhere! Or to grab a section of Syria and do an ethnic cleansing – enforce a “Trail of Tears” march of the Turkish Kurds across the border. Or… ?
Israel? My W.A.G. mirrors that of Turkey – another step towards going for the imaginary borders of Solomon’s Empire. On the face of it, encouraging anarchy in Syria is nuts from the Israeli point of view, but that nation’s thuggish iron-fist serf-management methods in the occupied West Bank and Gaza ought to work just as well in the northeast. And resource maps show some pretty good water supplies around Damascus. A nice frill would be the isolation and partial (or total?) encirclement of Lebanon. Lots more water there too, by the way.
The US is easier. The dream of American Empire continues to do very well in some places. One article I found suggested that sowing chaos – particularly in the energy-rich areas – is designed to both maintain and enhance US dominance and superpower status. If Europe and China and India and Japan are hurting for oil, they’ll be lots easier to manage. Compared with the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan, the latest campaigns are coming in at small fractions of a penny on the dollar.
Ok, those are some loopy conspiracy theories. But all this “stuff” is happening for some reason. Even though I’m too dumb to figure things out, the events reported on Google News are really happening.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset
Or from the translation at the Wiki:
To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace.
Still wearing my tin foil hat – it sounds like a plan!
October 11, 2012 at 4:25 AM
Crap! I’m so stupid today I can’t do a simple cut/paste without botching it.
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant
THAT’s what was was supposed to be on the line with the Latin.
😦
October 11, 2012 at 12:58 PM
Just watched a video of General Wesley Clark, the commander of the NATO operation against Serbia in 1999. In this video he recalls talking with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz in the period after 9/11. Wolfowitz said to him: The 1991 Gulf War taught us a very valuble lesson, that Russia will not intervene against us in the middle east and we have perhaps no more than 20 years till the next superpower comes along to challenge us. In that time we must go after all the former Soviet sattelite states and countries that are strategic to Russia: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lybia, Afganistan (on going at that time).
I for one refuse to believe that Assad is shelling turkey, I may be wrong but I just cant see it.
And now it emerges that Obama is a muslim after all and is selling Israel down the river.
October 11, 2012 at 3:31 PM
Unfortunately most of Obama’s supporters will believe whatever lies his regime tells. Most of them probably don’t even give a damn about the Constitution or the president’s citizenship or religion.
Many of them even support him because he’s a muslim and was the most anti-American candidate to choose from.