Al-Qaeda in Syria targets Turkmen minority

As al-Qaeda-linked fighters push for control over northern Syria, they have singled out a new and vulnerable target: the country’s small Turkmen minority. Over the past two months, the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has been menacing a cluster of Turkmen villages wedged between the Turkish province of Hatay and the Mediterranean Sea. The Turkmen call the area  "Bayir," which means "cliff" in their native Turkish. On a recent night, I stood with a group of Turkmen fighters on the Turkish side of the border and watched a Syrian army tank positioned on a nearby mountain shell the villages at a slow but steady pace.

"We used to live in peace in our orchards, now we are being attacked from all sides," said Omar Abdullah from the Omar al-Mokhtar brigade. "The regime bombs us with MiGs [Russian-made fighter jets] from the air, with tanks from the land and with ships from the sea, and now we are being attacked by ISIS," he said.