Will an attack on Turkish troops in Syria change the course of the war?

IT HAD BEEN decades since Turkey suffered such heavy losses in a single day of battle, let alone a single attack. The air strike that killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers in Syria’s Idlib province on February 27th risks escalating a messy civil war that has already taken hundreds of thousands of lives, created millions of refugees and dragged in foreign powers. Fears are now growing of a direct conflict between Russia, which supports the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and Turkey, which supports the rebels fighting it.Turkey blamed Mr Assad’s forces for the air strike, even though Russian jets have been much more active in the area. Russia denied responsibility, but suggested that Turkey may have invited the attack by placing its troops alongside Syrian rebels and not informing Russia of their location. Just hours after the strike Russia sent two warships armed with cruise missiles to the eastern Mediterranean. The warships sailed through the Bosphorus, which bisects Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city.