"Turkmen militias" coming to Libya. At some point journos and wonks will scramble to define how just the words "Turkmen" and "militias" are going to shift the regional debate. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Turkmen "of Turkish origin" spreads east and west and is now going south and north. Reminiscent of when our troops tried to figure out the difference between Afghans and Arabs only to discover the ethnic, historical, religious and cultural complexities. cfr.org/in-brief/whos-…
The history of Seljuk Turks and their movement east and west along with the rise of the "Ottomans" and Ataturk is complex but a great study since they have impacted Western history since the First Crusade in 1096. Warning! Boring History Video: khanacademy.org/humanities/wor…
My real world connection with Turkmen militia was spending time in war with a Uzbek Afghan who assembled Turk, Uzbek and Hazara horsemen to fight Arabs, Pakistanis and Pashtuns alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan The 12th century meets the 20th. dangerousmagazine.com/2018/01/20/gen…
Dostum had been flown to safety in 1998 by Turkish intelligence when the taliban took over Mazar. (I was trying to get in) Later I would spend time with Dostum while he was treated like royalty by the Turkish government. I met the same Turkish colonel in November of 2001 in Mazar 
The American SF had no idea there was a Turkish intel col and his batboy living with us (later we would have two taliban mullahs) so I dressed Bill Bennett up like a local farmer and he kicked in the Col's door "by mistake" priceless moment as East meets West.
I want to footnote that there is a lot of posturing and speculation on behalf of the sources in this Bloomberg article but Libya has no shortage of experienced fighting men who know the ground. Inserting foreign militias, as Haftar can tell you, is a really bad idea.
