Turkey, which has made Aleppo the key to toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, is gearing up for the worst-case scenario now that the armed opposition groups it has been supporting have suffered a series of setbacks.

The scenario that is emerging is that the defeated groups, which are supported by the West, Turkey and the Gulf states, are being pushed north to the Turkish border. Initially, part of Turkey's design to create a buffer zone in northern Syria was to open up space for victorious armed groups north of Aleppo. Now, everyone is trying to make some sense of Turkey's moves.

Since Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield, Ankara has been unusually quiet about heavy pressure against the armed groups besieged in Aleppo. Turkey had said its objectives in Euphrates Shield were to clear the Islamic State (IS) from the border region and to prevent the Kurds from forming a corridor along Turkey's border.

Russia and Syria had given Turkey the green light to move south from the border towns of Jarablus and al-Rai toward al-Bab. The arrangement was for Turkey to end its logistics support to the Aleppo groups in return for getting maneuvering space near its border. But when Turkey expanded its operations beyond the agreed-on area, the green light turned to red and both the Turkish army and Turkish-supported groups became targeted by regime forces.