Saudi Arabia sets up military base in Adana along with Qatar and Turkey, to help the Syrian rebels

The British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State, William Hague has admitted that Saudi Arabia, along with its allies Qatar and Turkey has set up a military base at Adana in Turkey, to help the Syrian rebels.

He further informed the media that the base was set up on the orders of Prince Saud bin Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz, the minister of foreign affairs of Saudi Arabia.

Confusion prevailed among the defence sources following the admission of the British official that the base was set up at Adana. Some of the analysts claimed that the İncirlik Air Base, operated by the United States Air Force is housing the facility for the Syrian rebels, while some others said that the Adana base is different from the AFB İncirlik. The base at İncirlik is located some 5 miles to the east of the Adana city.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar had been actively and publically supporting the Syrian rebels ever since the uprising began there. Both the nations are ruled by Sunni monarchies, and are seen as hostile towards the Assad family, which belongs to the Alawite sect of the Shiite Branch of Islam. Turkey, which was more or less neutral during the start of the conflict, had recently changed its priorities. This week Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish Prime Minister had warned the Syrian authorities that there is a strong possibility that the Turkish Armed Forces will launch pre-emptive attacks in to the Kurdish positions in north-eastern Syria.

Turkey had recently closed its border with Syria, to prevent armed insurgents from crossing over. However, the Syrian authorities accuse the measure as just eyewash. They claim that there are a number of semi-official border crossings along the Turkish border, through which the insurgents belonging to the Free Syrian Army regularly enter in to the Syrian territory.