Militants informed Turkey about plan to oust Assad: Report

The militants notified Turkey about their intention to conduct the attack around six months ago, Reuters reported on Monday, citing a “diplomat in the region” and an alleged member of the anti-Damascus groups.

The Syrian source told the agency that the militants “had shown Turkey details of the planning”, urging Ankara not to intervene in the attack.

After communicating the scheme, the militants “felt they had received its (Ankara’s) tacit approval”, the sources noted.

“There was no way” the militants “could go ahead without first notifying Turkey,” one added.

The comments came a day after the militants stormed the Syrian capital after scoring major gains in the Arab country’s north around two weeks following their staging a resurgence.

Reports, meanwhile, would point to strong support for the armed groups on the part of Ankara and some Western states, which have been acting as the main backers of anti-Damascus outfits since the outbreak of foreign-backed militancy in Syria in 2011.

On Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan claimed that the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had tried in the months that ran up to the militant offensive to engage with Assad, adding Ankara “knew something was coming”.

Reuters’ sources also stated that the militants had “sensed a stiffening of Ankara’s stance towards Assad earlier this year.”

Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Nuh Yilmaz, however, claimed that Ankara was not behind the offensive, and did not provide its consent.

A Turkish official also told the agency that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main armed group that took on Syria during the invasion, “does not receive orders or direction from us [and] does not coordinate its operations with us either”.