As of right now heavy clashes are still ongoing between FSA and the donkeys. It is very well confirmed that our first plan of "rescuing" ar-Raqqah from ISIS through Tel-Abyad has not reached consensus with the USA.
Our second plan was clearly stating, ar-Raqqah operation will be through Manbij - and it seems like this may be the reason of the events that is going on right now. Or, that Turkey is clearly "lone-wolfing" and is trying to meet its goals in terms of PYD settlements in its borders - without the consent of USA.
Don't hesitate to make judgments, there are many factors that must be looked into.
Turkey doesn't care about ar-Raqqah at all, our main aim is clearing terrorists from within our borders, we just need a buffer zone between terrorists and us. With ISIS we already have successfully created this security buffer zone. Now what was worrying us most was the YPG/PYD/SDF (PKK) - for the sole reason of it having the potential of becoming an autonomous state as this has been their dream for many decades if not many centuries. And what's more important is that this progression they have shown in Syrian Rojova is almost their biggest dream coming true. And the challenge lies upon all the countries supporting such autonomous (donkey) state.
YPG therefore possesses far greater danger for Turkey than ISIS could ever do. Nobody wants, or noboy will tolerate ISIS anyways. ISIS has lost more than half of its biggest HQ (Mosul), they have been weakened in Deir-Ez-Zoor by SAA, they have lost al-Bab to Türks and FSA, ar-Raqqah's end is as well quite soon. ISIS possesses no risk to Turkey's strategic position anymore, except for terror actions that may occur inside of Turkey (God forbid).
Now, grasping this is quite important. al-Bab operation was truly extended for good reasons. As I also stated before, it was only to extent our stay in Syrian soils, mobilize our troops, and increase our number of firepower and utilize all sorts of security measurements - and most importantly, making the world believe the operation is very demanding such that increasing our numbers both in terms of foot soldiers, and also more advanced weaponry. And all this worked. Otherwise, it would be impossible to increase our numbers from 1.500 - 2.000 to (now) over 8.000 (mostly consisting of special ops units) because all the powers would be against it.
If you ask me, we may soon see an offer coming from US administration about a joint ar-Raqqah operation - only because they want us to stop annihilating their donkeys (YPG). This joint operation may be actual in the following few days. And if it becomes actual, the most plausible scenario is ar-Raqqah operation through Tel-Abyad - where our main goal of this operation is dividing YPG controlled areas to further fractions - as I said, we don't really care about ar-Raqqah or ISIS any longer as they don't possess direct major threat any longer.
![[TR]AHMET](/data/avatars/m/27/27358.jpg?1397822937){kind=avatar}
