Op-Ed by Afraa Dagher

Technically, Syria has been always at war with Israel, the main cause being the illegal Zionist theft/occupation of the Golan heights. War with Israel took place in the years 1948, 1967, 1973 and, now, by fighting its proxies in Syria, the so-called ‘moderate rebels’ including the ‘Free Syrian Army’.

But it is not just Israel stealing Syrian land. Another piece, known as Liwa İskenderun in the northwest of Syria, now part of the Hatay province, was annexed (stolen) by Turkey from Syria in 1938. The Turkish military expelled the native Alawite and Armenian peoples living there and proceeded to import Turkish loyalists.

Turkey, with its NATO membership, downed a Russian jet just three days ago on the 24th of November 2015 while this jet was executing its legal mission in fighting the wild dogs making up ISIS, a Western and Israeli creation. Turkey claimed that the jet has violated its airspace and characterized the shoot-down as a ‘necessary’ act of ‘self defense’.





The terrorists around and within the borders of Turkey are not a threat to Turkey, but the Russian jets are.

The approximate crash location was within Syrian territory; however, Turkey is insisting that it was Turkish airspace, how is that?

The truth is that the downing of the Russian jet was entirely a set-up from the beginning. It was an ambush reminiscent of the Israeli ambush against the Soviet Air Force in the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict. It was a pre-planned attack on Russia in order to protect the terrorists that Turkey supports.

Turkmen mountain, where the terrorists are based, was the target of the Russian jet. This mountain is strategically and geopolitically important to Turkey; if the Russian fighters liberated and controlled it, Russia would be able to visually monitor the depth of Turkish lands a full 30 km, meaning that any approaching or existing terrorists gangs would be under Russian eyes. It is an obvious obstacle for Turkey, therefore, given that Turkey is the area from which these terrorists are trained, equipped, fed, and armed prior to their entry into Syria. In addition to this, it is through this route that the oil being sold to Turkey from ISIS travels, a large source of revenue for both Turkey and for Turkish President Erdogan personally.

And it is for this reason that Turkey considers any encroachment by the very effective military operation under the command of Russian President Vladimir Putin to be a ‘territorial violation’.

Russia’s presence in the area destroys NATO’s dream of an untouchable ‘buffer zone’ through which the present criminal activities against Syria are made possible, and why it was the obedient lapdog government of Erdogan that shot down these 2 Russian pilots, resulting in the death of one of them. The other pilot not killed was made the subject of an intense manhunt on the part of the ‘Free Syrian Army’ who had planned on holding the pilot hostage for the purpose of blackmailing Russia and in creating obvious political problems for Putin at home.

Through the grace of God, the Special Forces from the SAA working alongside members of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, rescued the Russian pilot, as well as the crew of the search-and-rescue helicopter that was forced to make an emergency landing while searching for him due to being fired upon by the ‘moderate rebels’ that are the badly-behaved children of the West and Israel.

What started out as a disaster was – again by the grace of God and by the heroic efforts of both the SAA, Russia and Hezbollah – mitigated, robbing Erdogan and the West of a clear-cut moral and political victory while at the same time raising the image of Syria, Hezbollah and Russia in the eyes of the world.

Afraa Dagher is a political analyst currently residing in Syria. She has made numerous media appearances commenting on the current state of affairs inside Syria as well as the nature of the current crisis. She has appeared on RT, PRESS TV, and is a regular guest on Activist Post writer Brandon Turbeville’s Truth on the Tracks radio program. Her website is www.SyrianaAfrona.wordpress.com.