The Turkish forces, backed by Free Syrian Army (FSA) militants, are currently fighting to capture the Syrian town of al-Bab from the IS, about 30 km from the Turkish border. (AFP photo)

ISTANBUL, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's intention to extend its ongoing military operation in Syria to Raqqa, an Islamic State (IS) stronghold in northern Syria, is not only beyond Ankara's capacity but would also expose it to huge risks, analysts warned.

"Turkey has neither the political nor military capacity to conduct such an operation by itself," Haldun Solmazturk, director of the Ankara-based 21st Century Turkey Institute, told Xinhua.

"Following the attempted coup, the Turkish military is at its weakest in history," Solmazturk said.

The Turkish government thwarted a coup bid in July last year, after which a sizable portion of the Turkish Armed Forces was discharged from service, and purges are ongoing in the military.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, in an interview with The Washington Post last week, said that Turkish troops in Syria will head toward Raqqa after capturing al-Bab.

Ankara launched a military offensive in Syria last August to push the IS away from the Turkish border and prevent the emergence of a Kurdish corridor along its border.

The Turkish forces, backed by Free Syrian Army (FSA) militants, are currently fighting to capture the Syrian town of al-Bab from the IS, about 30 km from the Turkish border.

"If Turkey encounters the (armed) Kurds (on its way to Raqqa), it will fight them," the Turkish foreign minister was quoted as saying by the U.S. daily.

"Turkey is not militarily strong enough to impose a new situation in the Middle East. Such a step would be met with opposition from the international community," argued Solmazturk, a retired general.

For Solmazturk, advancing the Turkish troops toward Raqqa is a fantasy which neither stands any chance of realization due to the realities on the ground nor has anything to do with Turkey's best interests.

"You can go to Raqqa, but how will you exit from there?" he demanded, underlining the importance of an exit strategy in such operations.

Raqqa, the de-facto IS capital, lies to the east of al-Bab, near the central part of Syria.

"Turkey would be further bogged down in the Syrian imbroglio with all its incalculable consequences if such a step is taken," Yasar Yakis, a former Turkish foreign minister, told Xinhua.

He warned that the Turkish army would be exposed to bigger military risks in a hostile environment as the supply line would become longer.

It is widely argued that the failed coup may have considerably weakened the military's capacity to fight not only due to the high number of dismissals from service, but also to allegedly sagging morale in the military.

Around 6,500 members of the Turkish military, among them more than 150 generals, were expelled following the failed coup on charges of being involved in the coup and linked with Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric who was accused of masterminding the attempt carried out by his sympathizers in the military.

Before the take-over bid, which many in Turkey believe was supported by the United States, there were 358 generals in the Turkish military.

Due to the dismissals, the total number of officers have gone down from almost 40,000 to around 30,000, while the number of non-commissioned officers and that of enlisted specialists and specialized sergeants dropped each by almost one-third, according to press reports.

Members of the military sometimes have difficulty trusting each other, fearful that the other could be a Gulen sympathizer, some analysts said on TV discussions following the coup.

The Turkish Air Force has particularly suffered a heavy blow due to the sacking. Around 300 pilots are estimated to have been fired following the coup bid.

Currently, the ratio of combat pilots to jets is 0.8, which should actually be at least 1.5 based on international standards, according to local media reports.

As fears grow in Turkey that the country is getting increasingly sucked into the swamp in Syria, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Tuesday that the towns captured by the Turkish troops would not be handed over to the Syrian government.

"Al-Bab belongs to the people of al-Bab," Kurtulmus told the state-run Anadolu Agency, stressing that local people must be in charge of running the town as is the case in Jarablus.

In Jarablus, Turkey put in place a make-shift local administration composed of FSA militants and locals. Jarablus, which is on the Turkish border, is the first town seized in Turkey's military campaign inside Syria.

What Kurtulmus said is unacceptable as far as international law is concerned, Faruk Logoglu, a retired diplomat who held top posts in the Turkish Foreign Ministry, told Xinhua.

Logoglu, who feels the deputy prime minister is unaware of what his remarks imply, said, "Then Turkey would become an occupying force."

The Hurriyet daily reported early last week that public servants such as teachers, doctors and people from Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) would be sent to serve in the areas in Syria under the control of the Turkish military.

Logoglu is concerned that Turkey is getting sucked further into the quagmire in Syria. Noting that Turkish troops have been in Syria for months, he stated, "The Turkish policy in Syria has no definite political aim."

"There is a military goal, but not a political one. And this is what is particularly bad," commented Solmazturk, who claimed that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan still seeks to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Despite recognizing the Syrian government as a legitimate one through its participation in the peace initiative which brought opposition groups and the Syrian government together for talks in Kazakhstan in the past week, Turkey still insists upon the ouster of al-Assad.

The government has not heeded numerous calls from analysts and Turkey's main opposition party to mend ties with the Syrian government.

The operation to seize al-Bab, which began around mid-November, demonstrates that the IS is a force to be reckoned with. President Erdogan said in late December that the capture of the town was imminent.

Ismail Hakki Pekin, a retired general who headed the Turkish General Staff's intelligence unit, said on Ulusal TV that the Turkish military should cooperate with the Syrian army to capture al-Bab.

More than 50 Turkish troops have been killed and many more wounded so far in the Syria operation.

"The two armies can jointly clear the area of ISIL and the YPG," Pekin said, using another acronym for the IS.

Currently, the U.S. and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), composed to a very large extent of members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), are preparing for an offensive for later this year against Raqqa.

Turkey would possibly not only face opposition from the international community by targeting Raqqa, but would also have to fight against two enemies in Syria, namely the IS and the YPG.

"Getting into Raqqa means a big war, it would cost (Turkey) dearly," Erdal Sarizeybek, a former officer from the Turkish Armed Forces, warned on his news portal, noting Raqqa is where the IS is strongest.

Sarizeybek also implied that Turkey has no interest in getting involved in Raqqa, saying, "For whom are we going to fight in Raqqa?"

The U.S., which has several bases in the Kurdish cantons in Syria, revealed earlier that it sees the Kurdish militia forces of the YPG as its ground force against the IS.

Washington agreed to cooperate with Ankara in its fight against the IS and not against the YPG, underlined Yakis, who also noted that Russia's cooperation with Turkey is limited to the fight gainst the IS, though Russia is less opposed to Turkey's pressure on the Kurds.

Last year, Turkish officials voiced readiness to join the U.S.' Raqqa campaign if the YPG was not involved, but received no positive response from Washington.

The YPG, seen by Ankara as the Syrian offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has established in war-torn Syria three autonomous cantons, two of which are united, along the Turkish border.

One aim of Turkey's so-called Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria is to stop the two Kurdish cantons on the eastern part of the Euphrates River from uniting with the Afrin canton in northwestern Syria.

Ankara also plans to target, after capturing al-Bab, the town of Manbij to drive the YPG out of it. The town, which lies about 30 km to the west of the river, is strategically important to unite the Kurdish cantons.

Turkey is concerned that the emergence of an independent Kurdish region in northern Syria may set a precedent for nearly 20 million Kurds living inside Turkey.

The PKK has been waging a bloody war against Turkey since 1984 to carve out an autonomous, if not independent, Kurdistan in the country's mainly Kurdish-populated southeast.

Turkey, which supports some rebel groups in the civil war in Syria, officially backs the territorial integrity of the Arab country.

Last weekend, President Erdogan voiced his concern about an eventual breakup of Syria and Iraq, saying Turkey would not agree to the emergence of several new states in the region.

Noting Turkey is aware of plans aiming to create new states in the Middle East, the president said he would take up the issue with new U.S. president, Donald Trump, when he gets the chance to meet him.

Erdogan's words vaguely implied that the U.S. is the actor behind the plan in question, which the president described as disturbing.

In the view of Yakis, Cavusoglu's Raqqa discourse may be aimed at preventing the Kurdish-led SDF from consolidating its military presence in the north of Syria.

If the Turkish plan about Raqqa is linked with the country's concerns about new states in the region, then there is not much Turkey can do about it, argued Solmazturk.

"It's too late now," he said. "Turkey should cooperate with Damascus and countries in the region at the earliest if the integrity of Syria is important, then the situation could perhaps be taken under control."

Turkey is also preparing to launch a massive operation against the PKK in spring both at home and outside of its borders. Other than the three cantons under YPG control along the Turkish border, the PKK has bases in northern Iraq.

Cross-border operations against the PKK are not sustainable under the current circumstances, maintained Solmazturk, adding that the most realistic thing to do is to settle the issue by cooperating with the central governments in Syria and Iraq.

The military offensive in Syria and the cross-border operations Ankara is planning to conduct against the PKK may well take its toll on the country's already ailing economy.

A military operation of this size is sure to adversely affect the economy, Mustafa Durmus, a professor of finance with Gazi University, told Xinhua.

The Turkish economy shrank, for the first time since 2009, by 1.8 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of last year amid warnings of a looming economic crisis.

According to latest official figures, the rate of unemployment rose to 11.8 percent in October 2016, the highest since 2010.

Maintaining that the real unemployment figure in Turkey is almost 20 percent, Durmus said, "Many companies may go bankrupt while unemployment and impoverishment in society increases."