http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-14/more-middle-east-escalation-turkey-syria-bar-flights-over-each-others-airspace
More Middle East Escalation: Turkey, Syria Bar Flights Over Each Other's Airspace
First, last Wednesday, Turkey intercepted a Syrian civilian jet suspected of carrying Russian weapons to Syria, forcing it to land in Turkey. The jet subsequently continued on its trip following stern denials from both Damascus and Moscow, and after Turkey found no evidence of its claim. Then yesterday, Syria promptly retaliated against this overt and unjustified aggression by banning all Turkish aircraft from crossing its airspace. Now, moments ago, Turkey retaliated to an act of retaliation against its own initial provocation, by barring all Syrian flights above its own airspace, and in the process preventing virtually all local airborne traffic from taking place. In other words: more mindless escalation which usually ends in a very unfortunate way.
What the Syria-Turkey border looks like:
More from Reuters:
Turkey banned all Syrian aircraft from its air space on Sunday, days after intercepting a Syrian airliner carrying what it said were Russian-made munitions for the Syrian army.Asked if Syrian aircraft were now banned from Turkish air space, a Foreign Ministry official said: "Yes, civilian aircraft. Military aircraft were de facto banned way before."Syria said on Saturday that it was banning Turkish civilian flights over its territory.
We eagerly await to learn what Syria's retaliation to this retaliation to its retaliation to etc, etc, etc, will be, and how long it takes until either the national interest of the "western world" or the Russia-China axis is impaired, and how they react. Because in the end, that's what it's all about.
and.....
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/12/syrian-jihadists-seize-aleppo-air-base-loot-missiles/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AntiwarNews+%28News+From+Antiwar.com%29
Syrian Jihadists Seize Aleppo Air Base, Loot Missiles
Second Air Defense Base Seized This Month
by Jason Ditz, October 12, 2012
A group of fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) backed by the jihadist al-Nusra Front attacked and captured an air defense base in the village of al-Tanneh, just outside of the major city of Aleppo.
A rebel video praising al-Nusra for its involvement in the attack claimed that the surface-to-air missiles at the base were being used against rebel forces, an odd claim since the rebels don’t have any air forces.
Al-Nusra is accused of ties with al-Qaeda, and its primary claim to fame has been attacking media outlets nationwide, killing journalists and media workers accused of being pro-regime.
It is the second air defense base captured this month, after rebels attacked and sacked a base near Damascus last Thursday. The bases have given the rebels access to anti-aircraft weaponry, putting all air traffic over Syria in jeopardy, as the FSA claimed recently that they consider civilian aircraft “legitimate military targets” if they are inside Syria.
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/11/jordan-us-troops-helping-prepare-for-syrian-attack/
Jordan: US Troops Helping Prepare for Syrian Attack
Forces Fortify Border, Prepare for Chemical Weapons Attacks
by Jason Ditz, October 11, 2012
Why on earth war-torn Syria would even consider invading Jordan is unclear, but the US troops on the ground in Jordan are apparently spending all their time preparingfor that eventuality anyhow, at least according to Jordanian officials familiar with the situation.
The 150 US troops are deployed in a base on the outskirts of Amman, and have apparently been spending time on the dual goals of reinforcing the Jordanian side of the border with Syria, and preparing for thepossibility of a chemical weapons attack.
Which seems enormously unlikely, as Syria has repeatedly said that they will only use their chemical weapon arsenal in retaliation for a foreign invasion. The more plausible explanation is the one raised when the US deployment was first revealed, that the troops are actually planning for a raid into Syria to seize the nation’s chemical weapons.
Though there has been some spillover of the Syrian Civil War into Jordan, most of the fighting now is centering on the northern frontier of Syria, along the border with Turkey.
http://www.debka.com/article/22428/Turkey-s-army-on-high-state-of-readiness-first-step-for-Syria-no-fly-zone
Turkey's army on high state of readiness, first step for Syria no-fly zone
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 11, 2012, 8:24 AM (GMT+02:00)
Turkish armed forces on full alert
War tensions over Syria continued to spiral early Thursday, Oct. 11, when Turkey’s armed forces were placed on a state of readiness and its chief of staff pledged stronger response to any hostile act by Syria, A high-placed US source confirmed to DEBKAfile that Turkey had, by forcing a Syrian civilian Airbus A320 plane en route from Moscow to Damascus to land in Ankara and declaring Syrian airspace “unsafe,” taken the first step toward creating a no-fly zone over Syria.
Early Thursday, Moscow responded with a demand from Ankara for clarifications claiming that 17 Russians were aboard the intercepted flight. Turkey had reported 37 passengers on the plane without specifying their nationalities. The intercepted Airbus was released overnight after a part of its cargo, described as military in nature, was impounded
In another sign that Syrian crisis was reaching a new and dangerous level, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta referred in Brussels, for the third time in 24 hours, to the threat of chemical warfare. He said US troops had set up a headquarters in Jordan to help monitor chemical and biological weapons sites in Syria. DEBKAfile had previously reported that similar headquarters were already present in Turkey and Israel.
Our sources note that, just as Turkish cross-border artillery exchanges with Syria since last week have been carving out, day by day, a 10-kilometer buffer strip on Syrian land, so too Ankara has begun the process of creating a no-fly zone in Syrian air space.
It is because of this initiative, that American military officials have begun citing Bashar Assad’s standing threat to resort to chemical warfare in the face of outside military intervention in the Syrian conflict. They suggest that the Syrian ruler may judge the peril to his regime on a par with the 2011 Western-Arab intervention in Libya which caused Muammar Qaddafi’s downfall. Assad and Iran, perhaps, too, are unlikely to sit still and let this happen.
Wednesday night, Oct. 10, DEBKAfile carried its first report on Turkey’s interception of the Syrian flight.
Early Thursday, Moscow responded with a demand from Ankara for clarifications claiming that 17 Russians were aboard the intercepted flight. Turkey had reported 37 passengers on the plane without specifying their nationalities. The intercepted Airbus was released overnight after a part of its cargo, described as military in nature, was impounded
In another sign that Syrian crisis was reaching a new and dangerous level, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta referred in Brussels, for the third time in 24 hours, to the threat of chemical warfare. He said US troops had set up a headquarters in Jordan to help monitor chemical and biological weapons sites in Syria. DEBKAfile had previously reported that similar headquarters were already present in Turkey and Israel.
Our sources note that, just as Turkish cross-border artillery exchanges with Syria since last week have been carving out, day by day, a 10-kilometer buffer strip on Syrian land, so too Ankara has begun the process of creating a no-fly zone in Syrian air space.
It is because of this initiative, that American military officials have begun citing Bashar Assad’s standing threat to resort to chemical warfare in the face of outside military intervention in the Syrian conflict. They suggest that the Syrian ruler may judge the peril to his regime on a par with the 2011 Western-Arab intervention in Libya which caused Muammar Qaddafi’s downfall. Assad and Iran, perhaps, too, are unlikely to sit still and let this happen.
Wednesday night, Oct. 10, DEBKAfile carried its first report on Turkey’s interception of the Syrian flight.
and......
Iraqi PM Warns Turkey Not to Try to Drag NATO into Syria Conflict
Turkey's ongoing artillery firing into Syrian territory is seen by many as an attempt to provoke a wider outbreak of war
by John Glaser, October 10, 2012
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned Turkey on Wednesday against escalating its tensions with Syria and thereby dragging NATO into the conflict.
Maliki, a close ally of Iran, said Syria was not threatening Turkey, and criticized Ankara’s response to errant Syrian shelling that landed in a Turkish town last week, killing 5 civilians, suggesting they were trying to incite a NATO war in Syria.
“Turkey is being presumptuous, you could say, as if it were taking responsibility for solving the Syrian conflict instead of the Syrian people and wants to impose its own solution. For this reason the international community needs to stop Turkey from intervening,” he said.
For much of the mortar fire coming into Turkey from Syria, according to the New York Times, “It has not been clear whether the Syrian mortar is deliberate or the result of inaccurate fire in clashes between government forces and rebels seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.”
Still, Turkey has kept up its “retaliation,” in what many see as unnecessary escalation of the conflict. As Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote of Turkey’s recent actions, Ankara may be trying to “[provoke] an incident in an attempt to force events and invocation of Article 5,” NATO’s provision that obligates member states to come to the defense of another member.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Tuesday that NATO would back Turkey in case of a more substantial break-out of war. But at the same time he urged the two sides to avoid escalation, in a sign of the West’s remaining unease with getting involved in anything more than a proxy war in Syria.
and......
http://www.infowars.com/turkey-is-hell-bent-on-provoking-war-in-the-middle-east/
Turkey Is Hell Bent On Provoking War in the Middle East
Violates international law by intercepting Syrian commercial airliner with F-16s
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
October 11, 2012
Infowars.com
October 11, 2012
Confirmation that Turkey is hell bent on provoking conflict with Syria that could easily escalate into a regional war arrived last night when the Turks intercepted a Syrian commercial airliner bound for Damascus, falsely claiming the plane was carrying military equipment.
Despite the fact that the Turks could have asked to inspect the plane’s cargo and had it land in Turkey by consent, they instead chose to unleash a show of force by having Turkish Air Force F-16 jets aggressively intercept the plane and force it to land in Ankara as soon as the airliner crossed into Turkish airspace.
The airliner was en-route from Moscow with 30 passengers, 17 of which were Russian. Russia reacted angrily to the incident, saying it was refused access to the citizens for 8 hours and that their lives were put in danger.
Turkey initially claimed it had intelligence suggesting weapons were on board the plane but later admitted that all it had seized was communications equipment. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu claimed the confiscated equipment was “illegal cargo,” a term that was later watered down to “objectionable” cargo.
According to passengers, masked men boarded the plane when it landed and proceeded to beat four people.
Turkey flies three commercial planes to Damascus and Aleppo every single day, but Syria has never even requested to inspect their cargo, never mind force them to land with fighter jets.
Syrian Air director Abdel Latif told Russia Today that Turkey had violated international regulations by intercepting the plane with no warning.
“This will only hurt the Turkish side. We did not receive any preliminary request to detail the cargo onboard the plane; we were forced to land by military fighters. If we received such a request, we would have replied to it,” said Latif, adding that the move was a violation of the Convention on International Civil Aviation and that complaints would be filed.
Imagine if Syria had engaged in such hostilities by intercepting a commercial airliner from a NATO-aligned country that was traveling through its airspace and then having masked men beat up passengers. NATO would immediately respond by imposing a no fly zone over Syria and the “humanitarian” bombardment would begin in earnest.
According to Israeli intelligence outlet DebkaFile, forcing NATO to impose a no fly zone over Syria is precisely Turkey’s aim. This is the primary reason why Turkey keeps launching hostile attacks against Syria in an effort provoke Assad’s regime into a response.
Turkey has already carved out a 10-kilometer buffer strip on Syrian land by means of artillery attacks that have been ongoing for weeks.
“A high-placed US source confirmed to DEBKAfile that Turkey had, by forcing a Syrian civilian Airbus A320 plane en route from Moscow to Damascus to land in Ankara and declaring Syrian airspace “unsafe,” taken the first step toward creating a no-fly zone over Syria,” states the report.
This follows last week’s incident when Turkey accused Syria of firing mortar rounds into Syrian territory. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan instantly seized upon the opportunity to demand that the United States have its air force impose a no fly zone over Syria, which as we saw with Libya is a euphemism for air bombardment.
Turkey lied to the UN when it claimed Syria had accepted responsibility for the incident, when no such admission of guilt had been made.
Using hostile actions by Turkey as a foundation on which to build consensus for a military intervention in Syria was outlined in a Brookings Institution report earlier this year, which admitted that “humanitarian” concerns were a mere ruse for achieving regime change.
Yesterday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that a contingent of U.S. troops would be sent to the Jordanian border over fears that Assad’s regime could turn to its arsenal of chemical weapons. As observers have previously highlighted, this is another potential false flag pretext NATO powers will utilize in order to justify a military assault on Syria.
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