Confronted with a Syrian-Russian attack on Thursday that killed dozens of Turkish soldiers, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is likely to launch a counteroffensive in Syria’s contested Idlib governorate this weekend. This is likely to end the burgeoning Russia-Turkey alliance and lead to increased bloodletting.
Erdogan is holding an emergency summit Thursday evening following the attack on a Turkish army position in Idlib. But it doesn’t matter whether Russian or Syrian pilots, or pilots from both nations, flew the mission that killed the Turkish soldiers. Bashar Assad follows Russian orders as to whether and which Turkish forces he is allowed to attack. Russia also provides critical targeting intelligence and logistics support to identify Turkish forces it wants to attack.
