Monday, December 3, 2012

Why Turkey Wants Patriot Missiles



Turkey Requested Nato Missile Defences Over Syria Chemical Weapons Fears -- The Guardian

Turkish officials say they have evidence Assad regime could resort to ballistic missiles if air campaign against rebels fails


A request by Turkey for Nato Patriot missile defences to be deployed on its territory followed intelligence that the Syrian government was contemplating the use of missiles, possibly with chemical warheads, Turkish officials have told the Guardian.

The officials said they had credible evidence that if the Syrian government's aerial bombardment against opposition-held areas failed to hold the rebels back, Bashar al-Assad's regime might resort to missiles and chemical weapons in a desperate last effort to survive.

Read more ....

My Comment: Sharing a long border with Syria, Turkey`s worries are justified. The concern has always been that if the Syrian government should find itself losing the war, it would then resort to specific actions. Closing the internet and much of the communications grid this past week is one of these actions .... using chemical weapons would be the last action. With much of the fighting now occurring near the Turkish border .... and with the Syrian government slowly losing the war .... the danger of this conflict escalating into the use of WMDs becomes not a question of if .... but of when.

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