US, Turkey seeking to topple Assad’s government: Analyst
The United States and Turkey along with a number of other countries have signed an agreement to arm and train militants to fight against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, says a political analyst.
“What we have now is this agreement between Turkey and the United States and frankly other countries - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and we believe Jordan - to bolster that fight against Assad and the Assad government,” Wayne Slater, a senior political writer at the Dallas Morning News, told Press TV on Thursday.
These countries help the so-called moderate militants “by providing equipment and training, pick-up trucks, machine guns, possibly mortars, anti-tank weapons and maybe most importantly or as important some radios in which some members of this free Syrian army, the Syrian opposition forces could call in US airstrikes or assist in those airstrikes.”
“The key here is that politically Turkey wants to focus on the ouster of the Assad government, the US wants to set priority as fighting ISIS (ISIL Takfiri terrorists) but the hope is that this will strengthen the opposition,” he explained.
The US State Department said the US and Turkey have agreed "in principle" to train and arm insurgents. The so-called training program is likely to begin next month.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said on Tuesday that Ankara hopes the deal will also strengthen the beleaguered insurgents fighting against the government of al-Assad.
Slater said ”the Pentagon believes that we have identified about 1,200 forces (and it) hopes that we can maybe build that ..to maybe 3,000 to 4,000 opposition forces in Syria in the year or years ahead.”
“But the key to this decision was that it is a formal effort to strengthen the opposition forces in a way with equipment and training and as many as of thousand US troops and trainers on the ground in Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in this fight,” Slater added.
The ISIL terrorists -- some of whom were amongst militants initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government -- now control large parts of Syria and Iraq.
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