Turkey steps up assault on Kurd militia in Syria
AFRIN: Turkey on Monday intensified its offensive against Kurdish militia targets in Syria as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed there would be no stepping back in a campaign that has stoked concern among Ankara’s allies and neighbours.
The Turkish military announced the death of its first soldier since the launch of operation “Olive Branch” on Saturday, its second major intervention in Syria’s devastating seven-year civil war.
The operation, with Turkish war planes and artillery backing a major ground incursion involving Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and Turkish tanks, aims to oust the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia from its Afrin enclave.
Civilians in the town of Afrin, 18 km from the front line, stocked up on food and medicine as they readied for a potential onslaught. Shelters were prepared and the internet was only functioning sporadically.
Turkey sees the YPG as a terror group and the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.
“We are determined. Afrin will be sorted out. We will take no step back,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara.
But the operation is hugely sensitive as Washington relied on the YPG to oust Islamic State jihadis from their Syrian strongholds and the Kurdish militia now holds much of Syria’s north.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said a total of 22 Syrian civilians have been killed by Turkish strikes and two more by Kurdish fire during the operation. It said 54 Syrian combatants had been killed, including 19 Ankarabacked rebels, 26 Kurdish fighters and nine unidentified figures.