COMPLACENT TURKS TAKE A TANKING IN SYRIA

As predicted here a few days ago, Turkey's military incursion into Syria is going badly because of problems with its German-supplied tanks. On Saturday (3rd) at least one tank was destroyed by Kurdish forces defending the Kurdish-controlled Afrin Pocket.

As reported by Kurdistan24:

The Turkish army on Saturday announced the killing of seven of its soldiers taking part in Ankara’s “Operation Olive Branch” offensive to dislodge US-backed Kurdish forces from the Afrin enclave in northwestern Syria.

“One of our tanks joining the operation in the northeast of Afrin was hit by PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG... elements. Five of our comrades in arms were martyred,” a statement by the Turkish General Staff said.

Giving joy to feminists was the fact that the tank appears to have been wiped out by a Kurdish woman:

"A video released by the YPG’s all-women branch, Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), showed a direct hit to the tank several miles away as a fighter who used an anti-tank missile could be heard celebrating."

This should be worrying for the Turks because it means the Kurds now have effective tank-killing weapons that can be operated by relatively unskilled military personnel. 

It seems that President Erdogan's boastful rhetoric about sweeping out the Kurds from Turkey's borders has ill prepared the Turkish military for what is an existential struggle for the Kurds in Syria.

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