Damascus, Syria, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. According to Bible prophecy, however, it is destined to become “a ruinous heap,” deserted, and uninhabitable (Isaiah 17).
The End of Damascus
Shifting Powers in the Syrian Theater After US WithdrawalWith the U.S. appearing to be out of Syria, Turkey may launch an offensive at any moment to attack Kurdish forces in northern Syria. What does this mean for Assad and the local Kurdish population and US-Turkish relations? TRT World's Yusuf Erim and our Mohammad Al-Kassim and Bianca Zanini analyze.
Turkey is vehemently opposed to a Kurdish entity on its border, fearing it will strengthen the separatist ambitions of the Kurdish minority inside the country, and says the YPG is a Syrian 'terrorist' offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The PKK, which has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984, is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies.
A withdrawal of US ground forces in Syria will give Turkey freer rein to target Washington's Kurdish partners in the fight against jihadists but analysts doubt Ankara's capacity to 'eradicate' the Islamic State extremist group.
Turkish officials have said that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan heavily weighed in on the decision by his US counterpart Donald Trump to pull all 2,000 US troops from Syria.
Trump's shock order came after Erdogan convinced him that Turkey could eliminate the last remaining pockets of IS after the jihadists suffered a series of military defeats.
'We have the strength to neutralize (IS) by ourselves,' Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu insisted on Tuesday.
But Erdogan's main objective in Syria is actually to target the YPG, which the US has trained to spearhead the fight against IS.
Trump said on Sunday after a telephone conversation with Erdogan that he counted on him to "eradicate" IS which he said was now 'largely defeated'.
Turkey has repeatedly called on the US to stop training and providing armed weapons to the YPG in the fight against IS, claiming that Turkish military forces would be more effective in eliminating the jihadist threat.
The last pockets of IS are in fact in eastern and central Syria, hundreds of kilometers away from the northern areas of the country which the Turkish military and Syrian rebels are accustomed to and where they led two offensives in 2016 and 2018.
Idlib is Syria's last major rebel and jihadist stronghold in the country's north.
Turkey says it will launch the military operation after the US forces’ pullout is complete. what will become of Kurdish fighters who have been fighting ISIS or DAESH in Syria?