Does the Kessab offensive in north-western Syria represent the beginning of deeper Turkish involvement in the country’s civil war?

The Northern Offensive

On the 21st of March, the Syrian Government border crossing in Kessab came under attack from multiple positions, reportedly within Turkey. Over the course of the next two days the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) forces had been pushed back from the border by rebel forces under the banner of Jabat Al Nusra (JAN) and the Islamic Front (IF).

Since then, rebel forces have advanced to take the entirety of the Armenian Christian town of Kessab, as well as the surrounding countryside. Additional videos showed them further south still – firing Grad rockets at the coastal city and Alawite stronghold of Latakia, resulting in the closure of its international airport. At the same time they released footage of the intercept of an SAA convoy heading north to engage them, resulting in heavy casualties.

In the last few days, the situation has become more static, with regime reinforcements being brought to bear against the incursion. Reports have indicated that rebel advances have been stopped and driven back towards the northern border somewhat. The strategic “Hill/Tower 45” region has been particularly contested, with both sides claiming to be in control.

Turkish Support

Prior to the Latakia offensive, most believed the rebels were on the slow road to defeat. Facing a series of losses in and around the Qalamoun Mountains, culminating in their rout in the Battle of Yabroud, morale was low. However, this new front has put the regime on the defensive, and seems to have put to bed talk of the imminent collapse of the rebels as an effective fighting force.

To see what has led to this abrupt turnaround, we need only look north.

Turkey, which shares an 822km long land border with Syria, has been accused by many of supporting the Free Syrian Army, and its successor jihadist groups in their fight against the Assad government. But never has their support been more apparent than in this offensive.

Specifically, two main areas of assistance enabled the rapid advance of rebel forces around Kassab:

The first of these is that Turkey allowed a significant number of rebels to mass on the Turkey side of the border in multiple positions from which to mount their initial assault. According to Al-Monitor, Mehmet Ali Edipoglu, a member of the Turkish parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, stated this regarding Turkish involvement in the attack:

“…even in the areas used by the [Turkish] soldiers, Syrian-plated cars were roaming about. According to information from villagers, thousands of fighters coming from Turkey crossed the border at at least five different points to launch the attack on Kassab. We ourselves observed dozens of Syrian-plated cars nonstop transporting terrorists and firing into the Syrian outpost from the military road between Gozlekciler village and our military base at Kayapinar.”

While the Turkish Foreign Ministry denied such allegations, it would seem inconceivable that their border troops were unaware, or indeed unable to stop this attack. Only with the tacit approval of the Turkish military could this have occurred.

The second major area of support which Turkey provided was air cover. On the 23rd of March, Turkish jets were scrambled to intercept, and then shoot down a Syrian Mig-23 which was attempting to bomb rebels attacking Kessab. Official Turkey claimed that the Syrian jet had breached its airspace, despite the fact that the plane’s wreckage crashed in Syrian territory. Whether or not this was true, the effect was the same: Turkey had, by proxy, enacted a small no-fly zone over the airspace close to its borders.

This impeded the ability of Assad’s air assets to provide crucial support to the SAA ground units, causing them to break under the rebel attack. It is interesting to note that only once the rebels began to advance beyond the area directly adjacent to the Turkish border could the Syrian Air Force begin to halt the advancing JAN/IF forces.

The Road to Escalation

This increased level of Turkish support for the anti-Assad rebels has played into a dynamic of increasing rhetoric from the Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. After a threat was made by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) against the Süleyman Shah Tomb – a tiny Turkish enclave within northern Syria, Erdoğan vowed to use force to protect it. In an interview with Turkish Star Television he stated:

“If a mistake is committed toward Suleyman Shah, then Turkey would do whatever is necessary […] Our territory is safeguarded under international agreements. Any attack on our territory will amount to an attack on Turkey.”

This rhetoric is made all the more alarming as it came just days before the release of a leaked phone call between Erdoğan and other top advisers regarding the possibility of finding a justification for war with Syria. Specifically, the Shrine of Suleyman Shah was mentioned as a potential flashpoint which could be used as a casus belli to intervene in Northern Syria.

Since this point, we have seen a racheting up of tensions along the Syrian-Turkish border. Turkish media regularly reports that its jets are being radar locked by Syrian air defense systems, while at least once in the past week, Turkish artillery has shelled Syria, after its side of the border was hit by rockets from the Syrian side. Furthermore, Erdoğan’s AK party’s recent electoral success could have emboldened him to take the publicly unpopular move of direct intervention in Syria.

During his post-election victory speech, ‘Today’s Zaman’ reported he had this to say:

“How can [Syria] threaten our national security? Syria is in a state of war with us. They are harassing our planes. They have martyred 74 of our brothers, and the Tomb of Süleyman Şah is our land. An attack on there is an attack on 780,000 square kilometers. Can we remain silent about such a thing?”

With the ‘civil’ war looking more and more likely to spill into a regional one, the more pertinent question remains “Will the international community remain silent?”

By Michael Cruickshank