Syrian Kurds mobilise civilians to defend Afrin from Turks
Syrian Kurdish officials are mobilising citizens to defend the town of Afrin after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday warned that an attack was imminent.
Egid Rashid, the spokesman for the Democratic Self Administration, the local government associated with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said defensive measures had been taken.
“The citizens of the district are guarding its borders and are ready to sacrifice everything to protect Afrin,” Mr Rashid said. “If Turkey attacks Afrin, then Afrin will be a powerful and unforgettable lesson for Turkey.”
Mr Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to attack Afrin, which is held by the PYD militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or PYG.
Ankara considers the Kurdish force to be affiliated with Turkish Kurds battling for autonomy in Turkey’s southeast.
Turkey has long supported largely Arab rebel groups fighting the Syrian government and has depended on them to deter the ambitions of Kurdish autonomy inside Syria.
Mr Rashid said Afrin had “for years now been under a systematic siege posed by mercenary groups supported by the Turkish occupation”.
He said Turkish forces had been shelling Afrin from within Syria and from positions in Turkey since Saturday, and the YPG had responded to movements by Turkey-backed forces with heavy machinegun fire.
The YPG makes up the core of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces militia that helped to drive ISIL from territory in eastern Syria last year.
While the US military has said it will continue to support the Syrian Democratic Forces, to secure Syria’s border with Iraq, Afrin is cut off from most of the territory the forces control in eastern Syria.
“There isn’t a clear statement by America about the situation in Afrin,” Mr Rashid said.
Turkey has objected to American support for the YPG and more outrage was triggered by an announcement from the US coalition on Sunday that it was forming a border force of 30,000 fighters that would include Kurdish militias.
The coalition said the force would prevent ISIL’s “freedom of movement and deny the transport of illicit materials” so that the Syrian people could establish “effective local, representative governance and reclaim their land”.
Mr Erdogan yesterday accused Washington of establishing an “army of terror” along the Turkish border.
“Turkey will suffocate this terror army before it’s born,” he said. “The operation is due to start any moment.”
Ankara fears that the inclusion of Syrian Kurdish fighters in the force will enable them to stage attacks on Turkey.
It says it will further their aim to consolidate a single autonomous region including Afrin along the Turkish frontier, and embolden PKK separatists the Turkish military has been fighting for more than three decades.
Turkey sent its military into northern Syria in 2016 as part of the fight against ISIL, an operation that also prevented Syrian Kurds from joining up Kurdish-held areas to the east and west along the Syrian-Turkish border.
Russia and Syria yesterday said the planned border force was a challenge to the Syrian government’s sovereignty.
Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said the new force was a sign Washington “doesn’t want to preserve the territorial integrity of Syria”.
A Syrian foreign ministry official said the plan was “a breach of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”, the state news agency Sana reported.