Kurds plead with US to halt Turkish attacks
US-BACKED Kurdish forces yesterday pleaded with Washington to halt a Turkish offensive against them as it prepared to mobilise reinforcements.
Turkey’s troops have crossed into Syria to attack the Kurdish-held area of Afrin, raising alarm that they are targeting the same fighters who helped defeat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
Turkey has said it is targeting the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which it considers to be a terrorist group. But YPG fighters also make up the bulk of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Us-backed rebel group which drove Isil out of Raqqa, its de facto capital.
As Turkish forces intensified their attack, the SDF pleaded with its allies in Washington to restrain Turkey.
“The coalition is urged to take its responsibilities towards our forces and our people in Afrin,” said Keno Gabriel, an SDF spokesman. He warned that the Turkish attack on Kurdish troops would only benefit the remaining fragments of Isil and allow them to regroup.
“This Turkish intervention comes to make final victory hollow,” he said.
The SDF said 18 civilians, including women and children, had been killed so far in the offensive. Turkey denied the claim, calling it “nonsense propaganda and baseless lies”.
Turkish state media said its army had taken 15 villages around Afrin, destroying 170 YPG targets.
♦at least 15 Syrian men, women and children froze to death while trying to cross into Lebanon, the United Nations has said. The group was following a smuggling trail near the Masnaa border checkpoint between Syria and Lebanon when they were caught in a storm on Thursday. Other members of the group, including a pregnant woman, were rescued by the Lebanese military.