As Syrian regime troops and Russian warplanes advance on Aleppo, some 100,000 have fled the city for the Turkish border—prompting Turkey and Saudi Arabia to threaten intervention.
The US aids Syrian Kurds against ISIS even as it acquiesces in Turkey's counterinsurgency against allied Kurdish forces just across the border—undermining anti-ISIS unity.
With Turkey insisting that the Syrian Kurds be barred from upcoming Geneva peace talks, Russia is pressing for their participation—while pursuing its grisly campaign of aerial terror.
World War 4 Report offers its annual annotated assessment of Obama's moves in dismantling, continuing or escalating the apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism.
The State Department named "bringing peace" to Syria as a 2015 accomplishment—as Russian air-strikes continue on schools, and starvation sets in behind rebel lines.
Amid counterinsurgency against Kurds in Turkey, Kurdish opposition leader Selahattin Demirtaş is received in Moscow—now executing a grisly counterinsurgency in Syria.
The UN resolution on a democratic transition in Syria assumes this can happen under Assad's rule. The US is now openly blocking with Russia over support for the dictatorship.
Russian naval forces got in a confrontation with Turkish vessels in the Black Sea, with control of contested oil platforms off the Crimean Peninsula at issue.
Turkey's prime minister accuses Russia of "ethnic cleansing" with air-strikes targeting Turkmen in Syria—as Ankara continues to attack Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq alike.
Kurdish strongman Masoud Barzani has invited a Turkish military force into his territory, with the apparent aim of driving the PKK from northern Iraq.
A growing split between secular and Islamist elements of the FSA is unfortunately mirrored by a breach between Kurds and Ankara-backed Arab and Turkmen forces.
The situation in northern Syria is escalating amid Russo-Turkish brinkmanship, with Turkmen villages coming under intense Russian bombardment.
