According to when reported by Reuters, a long military column has been on the march for days near Silopi, in the province of Şırnak, on the Turkish-Iraqi border (not far from the Syrian one). Many tanks, artillery pieces, armored vehicles, tank recovery vehicles and engineering vehicles, would have been sighted in these hours heading south. The troops are to be considered external to the operation Firat Kalkani (Shield of the Euphrates), with which the Turkish army has crossed the Syrian border since August, officially to fight ISIS but in practice to keep Kurdish militias away from their borders. However, they would be part of the same strategic scenario and the mobilization that Ankara has put in place on the south-eastern borders, in the context of the wars in Syria and Iraq.
The Turkish alarm was triggered with direct regard to the Kurdish-Iraqi offensive on Mosul, which has now entered its final phase. In particular, Ankara would protest the maneuvers around Tal Afar, a city with a Turkmen majority. Just as the Baghdad army announces its entry into the outskirts of Mosul, wards of the Strength (o Units) of Popular Mobilization (PMF) would in fact be moving on Tal Afar, a few kilometers away.
We make clarity.
The militias PMF they were created by the Iraqi government in the 2014 as a territorial force, initially reserved only for the recruitment of Shiites, then including minorities of Sunnis and Christians. Put together with US approval to make up for the shortcomings of Iraqi regular forces collapsed against ISIS in the 2014, they have become a landmark in northern Iraq. They are especially equipped by the Shiite Iran that would arm them through the Pasdaran, paladins also of the NDF (National Defense Force) Syrians, the militia that supports Assad's army. Although the Iraqi Kurds are their allies (together with the regular army of Baghdad) in the battle against the Islamic State, they enjoy much autonomy in the territory and respond to the direct orders of Iraqi Prime Minister Al Habadi (Shiite, not by chance).
Tal Afar, known for the tough clash between Al Qaeda and the American forces in the 2004, is a Turkoman city. According to the statements of the Turkish government, if the majority Shiite militias entered the city to drive out the Islamic State, the risk of religious and ethnic discrimination would be very serious. Turkey, warns every Iraqi force, regulate or not, and reserves the right to intervene directly to ensure its security. In reality it is already doing this (the Turks are already based in Bashiqa, Iraq, not far from Mosul).
Immediate the reaction of Baghdad that has ordered to Ankara to refrain from any form of interference. The statements follow the not very conciliatory exchange of the last days between the Turkish president Erdogan and the Iraqi premier al Habadi: the first would have argued that Mosul is in fact Turkish; the second that Turkey was part of the Abbàside Empire. 
Historical claims aside, Turkey pulls straight and declares itself "Not in duty to wait for the evolution of events, to defend their own interests": its forces meanwhile continue to hit Kurdish bases of the PKK located in northern Iraq (receiving the condemnation of the Iraqi government).
Behind the Turkish dynamism there is an obvious strategic plan. The Tal Afar Turk is just over 100 km from Turkey but only 70 km from the Syrian border, at the height of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) and is on the road between Mosul and Raqqa, the two self-proclaimed capitals of ISIS, in Iraq and Syria. Whoever gained control of the border between the two countries would have the future of the Islamic State in his hands.
What is clear is that the defeat of the Caliphate, an objective officially declared by Iraqis, Kurds, Shiite militias, Turks and Westerners involved, seems in fact the least concern. What is most important is the mosaic that will come to delineate soon after. The role of Kurds and Shiites in Iraq is all to be established. It should not be forgotten that the Shiites, useful against Saddam Hussein during Iraqi Freedom, they are actually a boomerang for the West that armed them, because they are close to Tehran and Damascus.
In the general silence, Turkey moves on its own.
(photo: Türk Kara Kuvvetleri)
