By Giancarlo Elia Valori
According to some very recent official Syrian sources, last April over 5,000 jihadists entered from the Turkish border, heading for Idlib and Aleppo. They include an undefined – albeit considerable – number of Uyghurs coming from the Chinese Xinjiang. Allegedly the technical and operational support to this new jihad was provided by the Turkish services and special units of the Turkish Armed Forces, namely the “Brown Berets”.
Some sources speak of 1,500 jihadists from Xinjiang, while others of at least 1,000 jihadist militants coming from that Chinese region.
The organizational and training support for this operation was provided supposedly not only by the Turkish forces, but also by the Turkmen guerrillas themselves, who had already been active in shooting down the Sukhoi Su-24M aircraft and removing its crew from the ground in November 2015.
It is worth recalling that the Soviet plane had been shot down by the Turkish air force for an alleged violation of its airspace.
It is also worth recalling that currently all the Turkish ruling and opposition parties support the “Turkmen” jihadists’ efforts in the Syrian region.
Read the full article on Modern Diplomacy
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