Turkey Saudi Arabia and some European allies want ground troops deployed in Syria 11702161

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Defence & Security News - Turkey
 
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and some European allies want ground troops deployed in Syria.
According a news from Reuters, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and some European allies want ground troops deployed in Syria. Turkey’s artillery has fired more than 100 shells at bordering areas in the northwest province of Aleppo, targeting both Syrian government forces and the opposition, Russian MoD spokesman Igor Konashenkov told reporters on Tuesday, February 16, 2016.
     
According a news from Reuters, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and some European allies want ground troops deployed in Syria. Turkey’s artillery has fired more than 100 shells at bordering areas in the northwest province of Aleppo, targeting both Syrian government forces and the opposition, MoD spokesman Igor Konashenkov told reporters on Tuesday, February 16, 2016. Turkish army Firtina 155mm self-propelled howitzer near the border with Syria
     
The Turkish official said it was now impossible to stop the war without such an operation, but that Ankara would not launch such an offensive on its own.

Earlier on February 13, Turkey and Saudi Arabia could launch a ground operation against ISIL in Syria, while Riyadh is also sending war planes to a Turkish base to fight the extremist group, the Turkish foreign minister was reported as saying.

An offensive, supported by Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias as well as Russian air strikes, has brought the Syrian army to within 25 km (15 miles) of Turkey's frontier, while Kurdish fighters, regarded by Ankara as hostile insurgents, have extended their presence along the border.

It said shells hit the town of Tal Rifaat which was captured on Monday from mostly Islamist rebels by a Kurdish-Arab coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Turkey shelled Kurdish positions in northern Syria for a fourth straight day Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on February 8 that the United States welcomed a Saudi offer to deploy special forces to support a coalition ground operation against ISIL inside Syria. Speaking after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, al-Jubeir said any operation would be U.S.-led but that Saudi Arabia would play a leading role.

On September 22, 2014, the United States, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates began to strike targets of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) inside Syria, as well as the Khorasan group in the Idlib Governorate to the west of Aleppo, and the al-Nusra Front around Ar-Raqqah, as part of the Military intervention against ISIL.

During the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, the United States first supplied the rebels of the Free Syrian Army with non-lethal aid (including food rations and pickup trucks), but quickly began providing training, cash, and intelligence to selected Syrian rebel commanders.