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ANKARA: Turkish fighter jets attacked targets in the Afrin district of northwest Syria just before sunset on Saturday as Syrian opposition fighters backed by Turkey launched a ground assault.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the action, called Operation Olive Branch, would be followed by an attack on the town of Manbij to the east.
The area is controlled by SyrianKurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey views as a terror group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
After several weeks of threats, Erdogan is thought to have launched the military action without the full support of Russia, which controls the airspace above Afrin.
“Moscow is concerned at this news. We call on the opposing parties to show restraint,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Russia withdrew its troops from the area “to prevent potential provocation and exclude the threat to the life and wellbeing of the Russian military,” the Defense Ministry said.
Moscow will support a demand at the UN by the Assad regime in Damascus that the Afrin operation cease, said Franz Klintsevich, a member of the Russian Parliament’s security committee.
“It is not only Syria that will demand this operation to stop. Russia will support this demand as well and will provide Syria with diplomatic assistance,” he said.
The Afrin operation may also sour Turkey’s relations with the US, which views the YPG as a key ally in its fight against Daesh. Oytun Orhan, a researcher on Syria at the Orsam think tank in Ankara, said that although the US did not consider Afrin part of its operational area, it nevertheless felt a responsibility to protect the YPG. However, late on Friday, Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon allayed fears that the offensive could jeopardize ties between Ankara and Washington.
Mete Sohtaoglu, a prominent Middle East commentator, said he expected the Assad regime to take over the region if Turkey ousted the Kurdish militias.
Turkey’s deployment along the western line of Idlib is a long-term strategic move by Russia, Enes Ayasli, a research assistant at Sakarya University in Turkey, told Arab News.
He said it would make Turkey responsible for the radical militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and “their possible actions against regime forces and Russian air bases in Hmeimim and Tartus.”
Also on Saturday, Syrian regime forces and supporting militias retook Abu Zuhour air base in Idlib, which opposition fighters captured in 2015.