Business Insider quotes Rafik Hariri Center Nonresident Fellow Aaron Stein on Turkey’s image as nurturing the Islamist side of the Syrian insurgency:
“All of this speaks to a bigger issue of how Turkey is perceived to have been nurturing the Islamist side of the Syrian insurgency at the expense of Syrian nationalists,” Aaron Stein, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Business Insider.
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“The group itself had advertised its entry into Syria on social media, and it was well known that they were entering through Turkey,” Stein said.
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Stein has previously written about how Turkey “eventually reached out directly to al-Nusra, believing that the rebel group would be useful in achieving its ultimate goal: the overthrow of Assad.”
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“Turkey’s bread-and-butter, so to speak, is Ahrar al Sham: Their brand of jihadism is plain vanilla, and they create the counterweight — and are a force for moderating — al Nusra,” Stein said.
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“Ankara seems to have used Ahrar (and, indirectly, its jihadist allies) as a political and military counterweight to the PYD/YPG, keeping what Turkey views as a grave Kurdish terrorist threat bottled up in a few disconnected cantons,” Stein said.