Tel-Chai Nation

A war of old that Azerbaijan once waged against Armenia is now beginning again, this time with collaboration from another notorious enemy of Armenia, that being Turkey:

Armenian Ambassador to Moscow Vardan Toganyan accused the government of Turkey on Monday of shipping battle-hardened Syrian jihadis to Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region between Armenia and Azerbaijan where fighting erupted this weekend.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a separatist region that considers itself an unrecognized sovereign state. Its population is majority Armenian, though Azerbaijan claims it. While clashes occasionally erupt there, the situation became deadly this weekend; both sides claim the other shot first and declared martial law. Initial reports indicated that at least 23 people died in the weekend fighting.

Both Azeri and Armenian officials reported extensive fighting continuing overnight into Tuesday. Some reports indicate that as many as 100 casualties exist, many of them civilians.

Toganyan told reporters on Monday that he believed Turkey had sent Syrian fighters to the disputed Caucasus border area, placing the number of these fighters in the region at about 4,000 so far. Azeri officials have denied the claim – calling it “complete nonsense” and arguing that they have no need for reinforcements – but Turkish officials have not.

Turkey is extensively involved in multiple war fronts, including Syria and Libya. In Syria, it has collaborated with fighters belonging to the former Free Syrian Army and Sunni jihadist organizations like the Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaeda now known as Tahrir al-Sham. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a vocal opponent of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite Shiite Muslim, and has repeatedly called him a “terrorist.” Assad has likewise referred to the Turkish invasion of his country as terrorism.

And yet there's Syrians who're supporting the same ideologies. Now, the jihadism against Armenians is tragically continuing, and is backed by the country that spawned the Islamic Ottoman empire that led to the Armenian Holocaust during WW1. The questions is, will sane forces do anything to stop it, without going easy on the Islamofascists?

Labels: Armenia, Asia, islam, jihad, military, political corruption, racism, syria, terrorism, turkey, war on terror