The Turkey-based Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant; HTS) has launched a coordinated attack on the Aleppo Governorate in northwestern Syria, the latest in a 13-year scuffle between Turkey and Syria.
Reports indicate that the attack cut off the main highway from Damascus to Aleppo and resulted in the killing and capture of dozens of Syrian Army soldiers. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is also promising mass executions and beheadings "in front of TV cameras" as well as the takeover of military bases and villages.
On social media, the jihadists posted video of themselves capturing several training aircraft at the Kuweires Air Base near Aleppo, which is now under complete control by the jihadists. The tens of thousands of Kurds, Christians, and other minorities who live in the region are now at risk of being exterminated.
"These painful scenes are reminiscent of the horror of October 7 in Israel," tweeted the "Babak Taghvaee – The Crisis Watch" (@BabakTaghvaee1 on X / Twitter).
"Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists of Turkey, have captured hundreds of Kurdish women in Tall Rafaat, Syria. They are already threatening to sell them as sex slaves. The exact thing they did to Yazidi women in 2014."
The Nioh Berg (@NiohBerg) X / Twitter account added that the jihadists in Syria, Gaza, and elsewhere all have the same "morbid" thing in common: "taking sex slaves."
(Related: Did you know that Turkey and 51 other nations are calling for a global arms embargo on Israel?)
Jihadists targeting Christians
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is part of a larger alliance of terrorist groups with links to the Islamic State (ISIS) that have an active foothold in Syria. Formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham used to be Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria. It adheres to Sharia law and is backed and supported by the Turkish military and other Turkish-backed groups operating in Syria.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was also involved in the formation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which in 2018 was added by the U.S. State Department to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Turkish media outlets are reporting that a group called the Syrian National Army (SNA) has commenced "Operation Dawn of Freedom" on Aleppo, which involved taking control of Kuweires Air Base and three villages and a hill in Tel Rifaat. The group also cut off the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces' supply line, which stretches from Tel Rifaat to Manbij.
"MISSING FROM MEDIA REPORTS ON ALEPPO: 'Rebels' taking city are NOT Freedom Fighters but Turkish-backed Islamists with same ideology as ISIS that target Yazidis, Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities," tweeted Nadine Maenza (@nadinemaenza), the former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
"The USCIRF reports they 'target religious minorities, especially Yazidis, for rape, assassination, kidnapping for ransom, confiscation of property, and desecration of cemeteries and places of worship.'"
All religious minorities are now at risk of extreme persecution in Syria as the jihad progresses. It is expected that the jihadists will broadcast the horrors they commit on the world stage for everyone to see as part of a shock and awe campaign of violence.
According to Mazloum Abdi, leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, his forces are "coordinating with all relevant parties in Syria" right now to safely evacuate the people of Tal Rifaat and Shahba to Rojava, an area of Syria that is currently controlled by Kurdish forces.
"The government of Turkey has supported jihadists in Syria since the beginning of the civil war in 2011," reports the Gatesone Institute. "Turkey has allowed Islamists to use the Turkish territory to cross the border to Syria to join terrorist organizations there."
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