by Nikitas » Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:50 pm
"This crack team of Turkish Commandos were under the command of Special Forces Major Zeki Zen of the infamous Unutulmaz SAT. "
Pahiti,
I cannot comment on the rest of your post. But calling that rag tag bunch of people a "crack team" is stretching my credulity. The reason is simple: they were shown on Turkish TV returning from Imia using common commercial grade inflatable boats with WHITE evinrude engines!!!! WHITE engines on a stealthy night operational craft is unheard of.
These were not frgmen. The leader of the team, wearing a RED BANDANA (!!!!) dressed in a mish mash of rambo style gear gave a pep talk on how he and his team were trained for this kind of amphibious operation. But he carried no gear for it.
To contrast, the Greek team that landed on the other Imia island (there are two, Big and Small Imia) were invisible to the cameras, their boats and gear were black and infra red proof, they were never allowed to speak to the media and their identity is unknown to this day.
The conclusion is that one side carried out a PR event, and one side carried out a military operation pure and simple. Mazybe this explains why the Greek side fired the armed forces chief, perhaps he exceded his orders and instead of a publicity stunt he actually prepared to fight that night.