My take on Afrin, Turkey's supposed imminent deployment into Idlib, and the "race" for the Omar oil fields north of the Euphrates near Iraq (still under ISIL).
Turkey is supposedly in the process of negotiation with HTS for the later to withdraw from areas bordering Afrin in favor of Turkish Armed Forces/Turkish backed rebels, by which Afrin would be nearly encircled by Turkey and that area would be effectively under control of an Euphrates Shield-type force. There are rumors that Turkey would then possibly attack and conquer Afrin. Currently despite the rumors, there still isn't any such mass deployment, even though some Turkish forces did supposedly enter Idlib, most likely scouts and negotiators. HTS needs to get out of the areas so that Turkey wouldn't openly side with terror-list jihadists and that it can scream ONLY MODERATE REBELS when this move would be questioned.
Conquering Afrin would partially quench the Turkish thirst for Kurd-marxist blood and revenge for Tell Rifat and Menagh base and score Erdogan a lot of bragging points with stupid Turks, but more importantly, it would connect Euphrates shield and Idlib into a single territory and thus provide Idlib with three more border crossings for supply. This being probably a major strategic concern for Assad in the long run, I imagine Russia will be keeping Turkey from assaulting Afrin for a very long time, if not forever.
I think Russia is carefully balancing the SDF with this - hence why the apparent race for the Omar fields south-east of Deir ez-Zor between the SDF and SAA stalled. Russia probably made it clear to the SDF that they won't red-light Turkey entering Afrin if the SDF doesn't stop advancing, though it's likely a bluff because I can't imagine the government and Russia can afford Afrin becoming rebel-controlled.
I'd say the Khabur river will be SDF's border beyond which they won't advance to the east, unless something changes, and that future territory for SDF and SAA has been arranged in a deal with Russia and the US behind the scenes.
There were even rumors of Turkey planning to drive HTS out of Idlib so that only MODERATE REBELS would remain, but this would be a costly undertaking for Turkey and would make the rest of the rebels even 10 times more impotent than they are now, since HTS is the basically more than half of the Idlib rebels' fighters that are worth anything.
Omar fields are off map to the lower-right.
Funny how Afrin, which was the sole supply route for besieged Nubl and Zahraa, will now itself (and was already for a long time) be supplied exactly through the same two villages.
Diversity within Oneness.
- By skinster