Amid a fast moving seizure of Syrian cities by a U.S.-classified Islamist terrorist movement, the power politics of the Mideast is rapidly changing quickly.
JERUSALEM — After Turkey-backed radical Islamist forces seized the pivotal Syrian city of Hama on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cheered the astonishing military advance of his allies. 'I would say we hope for this advance to continue without any issues,' Erdogan said on Friday, according to a Reuters report. He added that the capital city of Damascus, where Syrian dictator Bashar Assad resides, is the objective. 'The target is Damascus.
These problematic advances continuing as a whole in the region are not in a manner we desire, our heart does not want these. Unfortunately, the region is in a bind,' he said, without elaborating. Erdogan's comments about terrorist entities within the ranks of the insurgency are an apparent reference to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham , the former Islamist Al-Qaeda affiliate that is part of the rebel force. Turkey is a member of the American-led NATO alliance.
reported on Friday that HTS and its allies are a mere one kilometer from the military academy in Homs. The military training facility in Homs is the largest in the war-torn country. The stunning progress of HTS and its coalition partners in their rapid-fire seizure of Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, last week and now Hama has upended an already volatile Middle East. A number of countries within the Fertile Crescent region—Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq—are immersed in wars and conflicts spanning various levels of intensity. Israel Defense Forces announced on Friday that it is 'reinforcing aerial and ground forces in the Golan Heights area' that borders Syria.
The stakes are high in Syria and for the heartland of the Mideast. Rosen referenced the late British journalist, Patrick Seale, who authored books on Syria. 'The hegemony of the Middle East depends on who will rule Syria,' said Rosen with respect to Seale’s core idea about the importance of Syria for the region. Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the Islamist leader of HTS, who has a $10 million bounty on his head from the U.S.
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