Source: TheCradle.co
Militants from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) currently invading Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, are taking orders from Turkish intelligence, French news agency AFP reported on 30 November.
HTS, formerly known as the Nusra Front, launched a lightning offensive from the group’s stronghold in Idlib Governorate on Wednesday. Its fighters took over numerous villages in the Aleppo countryside before taking control of large parts of Aleppo City on Saturday, including the ancient citadel.
AFP writes that “Opposition sources in touch with Turkish intelligence said Turkey had given a green light to the offensive.”
An AFP correspondent in HTS-held Idlib further reported that “The jihadists and their Turkey-backed allies took orders from a joint operations command.”
During the US-backed covert war on Syria that began in 2011, the CIA and allied intelligence agencies established joint operations rooms in southern Turkiye and Amman, Jordan, to direct the activities of their extremist proxies fighting the Syrian government.
Izvestia reported that the current HTS attack on Aleppo was coordinated between Turkish, Ukrainian, and French intelligence, with Israeli support and US approval…….