As Syrian Government forces continue with their mission of reclaiming Idlib from Islamic militants backed by Turkey, the Syrian Arab Army and Turkish forces have been engaging in the fiercest of the clashes. As reports emerge, Pakistan is also assisting its strategic ally Turkey in the Syrian civil war.
Over 100 Pakistan backed militia have arrived in war-torn Syria to fight alongside the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) according to reports by an Indian media portal – ThePrint
The fact that Pakistani mercenaries have landed in Syria has been revealed by Lindsey Snell, an American journalist who has covered the nine-year-long-and-counting Syrian war. Snell, who has reportedly been abducted by an al-Qaida affiliate and even jailed by Turkey, told ThePrint that the information was given to her by a “source in the FSA”.
According to her source, she said, a total of 1,400 Pakistani mercenaries are to join the Turkish-backed group, which is one of the many non-government militias involved in the Syrian civil war.
With pro-Syrian troops moving into the Idlib area, more than 832,000 refugees have moved north toward Turkey. The strife threatens to send over one million refugees into Turkey, which has already received over 3.5 million civilians since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.
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Turkey needs the Idlib province to remain safe and secure for refugees to stay so they don’t venture out and move towards Turkey. Ankara has poured in hundreds of military vehicles and regular ground troops and engaged in repeated artillery exchanges with the Syrians, killing dozens of soldiers on both sides, to defend Idlib from the Syrian incursion.
However, the Turkish troops — who had been providing some degree of stability in Idlib — were quickly surrounded or overrun by bombing and shelling from the Syrian army and its Russian “advisers” and the conflict only seems to be getting out of hand.
