Under fire
Turkey’s president says civilians will be led out of the Syrian enclave of Afrin, as his country’s offensive against the Kurdish majority city heats up.
"All care is being taken. Right now, the first civilians are being taken out of Afrin in vehicles through a special corridor."
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish president
SYRIA: Turkey’s president says civilians will be led out of the Syrian enclave of Afrin through a ‘‘special corridor’’, as his country’s offensive against the Kurdish-majority city heats up.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels would have completely encircled Afrin – home to more than 700,000 people – by the end of the day.
‘‘All care is being taken. Right now, the first civilians are being taken out of Afrin in vehicles through a special corridor,’’ the president said, as his forces bombed the last remaining road out.
Afrin, which is controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), is bordered to the north and west by Turkey and to the south by governmentcontrolled Syrian territory. Turkish raids have killed 10 fighters loyal to the Syrian regime, which last month deployed forces to Afrin’s southern outskirts after the Kurds asked for help. The fighters then shelled Turkish positions.
Despite the Kurds’ desire for autonomy from Damascus, they have largely avoided direct confrontation while both were fighting Islamic State and rebel groups.
As the Syrian civil war enters its eighth year today, the latest advances risk pitting Turkey against the Bashar alassad regime – a confrontation it has so far gone to great lengths to avoid, preferring to fight through proxies.
Much of the territory captured so far in Turkey’s two-month offensive has been rural. However, any incursion into the more densely populated city has the potential for high civilian casualties.
The violence in Afrin has displaced thousands of civilians and left those trapped there with limited resources.
Azad Mohamed, a resident, said he waited in line for eight hours to get a few loaves of bread. The water supply to the city has also been cut off for a week. The International Committee for the Red Cross warned yesterday that any evacuation of Afrin must adhere to humanitarian rules.
Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch with the aim of clearing YPG militants, who it considers terrorists, from along its southern frontier.
Since the start of the war in 2011, the YPG and its allies have set up three autonomous regions in northern Syria.
Nato member countries have remained relatively quiet over their ally’s offensive.
The Syrian war passes a grim sevenyear milestone today, but instead of winding down, the violence has only escalated.
Bombardment by the Syrian regime and its ally Russia killed 25 civilians, among them three children, in the embattled rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta yesterday, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Jan Egeland, a senior adviser to the United Nations, warned that the country could see ‘‘tremendous battles’’ for two remaining rebel enclaves even once a government onslaught on Eastern Ghouta was over – Idlib in the far northwest, and Deraa in the south.