Northwest Syria seems like a place where jihadis are expected to die.
Turkey will probably hold a strip of land in the northwest of Syria as a buffer zone, but Turkey's supposed role in supporting jihadis in Idlib province seems more like holding the jihadis up to make it easier for the Russian-Assad alliance to kill them for the sake of Assad and Turkey:
The Idlib rebels don’t have many good options. The Syrian army keeps attacking from the south and east and for over a year have been slowly making progress. In the north the Turks are not attacking but are making it very difficult to get into Turkey, the last possible escape route for the Idlib civilians and rebels. The Syrian and Russian attacks are technically violations of a ceasefire. Five to ten ceasefire violations are reported each day and most have to do with one side or the other retaliating for a previous attack. Negotiations have generally been ineffective as everyone sees the war as a deathmatch.
Have no doubt that when Idlib is occupied--save for the buffer zone strip that Turkey will defend--Assad will kill every jihadi and every jihadi supporter he can get his hands on.
The Turks won't let the jihadis escape to Turkey nor will Turkey really shield the jihadis from the Syrian and Russian attacks.
At best, Turkey will let some of them volunteer for service in Turkey's Arab Foreign Legion to die in Libya (or fighting Armenia, for a short time) or to battle the Kurds as settlers and militias in the buffer zone to the east.
I'm not going to complain about killing jihadis. They are the only good ones, after all. But it is a pity that Erdogan, Assad, and Putin will gain in the process.
Or will the latter's real losses take place after the defeat of the jihadi kill box sanctuary when they don't have a common enemy to kill in Idlib province?
