/.../While the US has successfully established such a zone in eastern Syria – the closest it came to doing so in northern Syria is NATO-member Turkey’s “Euphrates Shield” occupation zone and the smaller “Idlib Shield” zone which both border territory held by hostile Kurdish militants.
Recently announced plans by the US to create a 30,000-strong “border defense force” comprised of US-armed and funded Kurdish militants may be intentionally designed to grant Turkey a pretext to begin widening its occupation zones to provide cover for the remnants of militants likely to be evicted from much of southern Idlib.
Reports that Turkey is preparing an offensive to widen its occupation westward into Idlib are already circulating in the media.
The BBC in its article, “Syria crisis: Why Turkey is poised to attack Kurdish enclave Afrin,” would report:
Turkish television channels have been reporting from the Syrian border every top of the hour with pictures showing the deployment of troops, tanks and armoured vehicles.
“The countdown has begun for Turkey’s operation against Afrin,” said one pro-government channel.
Its correspondent underlined that the troops on the border were already pointing at what the authorities term terrorist targets within Syria. There were also reports of Turkish artillery shelling the area.
It should be noted that Afrin is located between territory Turkey is currently occupying. Turkish troops, should they seize Afrin, would effectively have expanded Turkey’s “Euphrates Shield” by 30 miles (53 km) and present an opportunity to for its troops to link up with troops of Turkey’s “Idlib Shield.” This would create a large, singular buffer zone within which US-NATO forces could harbor militants driven back by Syria’s most recent offensive.
Depending on Turkey’s success, the zone could be expanded even further, even as far as including Idlib city itself – thus granting the US an opportunity to present it as a second Syrian “capital” much in the way Benghazi was used in Libya during US-led regime change there. There remains, however, the fact that Idlib is openly occupied and administered by Al Qaeda, making the proposal of transforming it into an “opposition capital” particularly dubious.
