French President Francois Hollande convinced President Barack Obama to reverse his position against intervention in the Syrian with all possible speed to prevent Assad winning the war against the rebels. Turkey was given the green light to pursue steps against Syrian flights and airspace with a view to clearing ...

War tensions over Syria shot up again early Thursday, Oct. 11, when the Turkish army was placed on high readiness and its chiefs pledge stronger responses to Syria. An authoritative US source told debkafile that Turkey had - by forcing a Syrian civilian flight en route from Moscow land in Ankara and banning flights over Syria - begun creating a no-fly zone over Syria. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta again cited the threat of chemical warfare. US sources don’t expect Assad or Iran to take Turkish actions lying down.

Turkish air force jets forced a Syrian 35-passenger Airbus A320 bound from Moscow to Damascus to land in Ankara Wednesday night, Oct. 10. Ankara also announced Syrian air space was no longer safe for civilian flights – a signal that Ankara will stop civilian air traffic over Syria. Turkey has not indicated whether military aircraft or Iranian civilian planes frequenting Syrian skies are included in the ban, but it begins to look as though Turkey has take steps toward imposing Syria’s first no-fly zone.

Turkey and three Gulf nations as well as France and Britain are pushing hard for a no-fly zone to be imposed on Syria to protect safe havens. Obama continues to resist direct US military intervention. Without a US lead, the no-fly plan is a non-starter.

Moscow is using the time up until Russian President Vladimir Putin faces US President Barack Obama across the G20 conference table in Los Cabos, Mexico Sunday, June 17 – or its corridors - to ship sophisticated anti-air, anti-ship arms to Syria able to prevent a no-fly zone being imposed. A fleet of Russian warships is also heading for Tartus. If the two presidents come to terms on Syria and Iran, the planned US and allied intervention in Syria may be delayed. If not - quickened.

The US President Barack Obama has ordered the US Navy and Air Force to accelerate preparations for a limited air offensive against the Assad regime and the imposition of no-fly zones over Syria - depending on Moscow's reaction.

Four days after the Western-Arab coalition decided Saturday, March 19 to enforce a no fly zone over Libya, only six Western warplanes - American, British, Canadian and French - are in the sky at any one time, debkafile's military sources disclose. This is barely enough for a no-fly zone just over Benghazi. And so the anti-Qaddafi operation has run out of steam, slowed also by the falling-out between Washington, London and Paris over its nature and goals and the fading away of the Arab component.