Turkish-led forces oust Kurds from Afrin
Rebel fighters backed by Ankara move into Syrian city as militias retreat after bloody two-month battle
‘Many of the terrorists had turned tail and run away already’
TURKEY wrested control of the Kurdish-majority Syrian city of Afrin yesterday after two months of heavy fighting and the displacement of an estimated 200,000 people.
Syrian rebel fighters, backed by Ankara, raised Turkish and Syrian rebel flags in the centre of Afrin after Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters moved in yesterday morning after the retreat of Kurdish militias.
It marked a win for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, who said in a speech that “many of the terrorists had turned tail and run away already”.
It marked something of a defeat for Bashar al-assad, Syria’s president, after government-allied Shia forces joined the Kurds in battle in late February.
The fight for Afrin was part of what Turkey code-named Operation Olive Branch, a deadly ground-and-air offen- sive to dislodge Kurdish YPG and YPJ militias from the Turkish border.
Turkey considers the groups to be related to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a bloody, decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.
Since the offensive’s launch in January, some 1,500 Kurdish fighters have been killed, observers said yesterday.
According to figures released by the Turkish army, 46 Turkish soldiers have been killed since the start of the Afrin offensive. Scores of civilians were also killed, particularly in recent days as Turkish warplanes homed in on Afrin’s centre. On Saturday, Turkey’s military denied responsibility for a strike on a hospital that killed 16 people, including two pregnant women.
Monitors and YPG sources claimed that some “pockets of resistance” remained inside the city, but with Syrian rebel fighters combing the streets since yesterday morning, it was unclear how long resistance might last.
Syrian Kurdish officials claimed yesterday that their near-complete ousting from Afrin marked not a defeat but “a new phase” of guerrilla warfare. “Our troops will turn into a continuous nightmare for them,” said Othman Sheikh Issa, an official from Afrin.
Mr Issa warned that the Kurdish militia remained present in the district and would target the Turkish military and its allied Syrian troops at every opportunity.
Operation Olive Branch has brought Mr Erdoğan into an awkward position, turning his country’s considerable firepower on militias backed by the US, his Nato ally.
Many of the FSA militias fighting alongside Turkish forces had once received backing from the US, further muddying the waters in north-eastern Syria.
As Mr Erdoğan claimed victory in Afrin, Mr Assad signalled the same with a high-profile visit to Eastern Ghouta, where his own forces are operating with Russian backing to obliterate resistance to his rule.
A blistering aerial campaign and fierce ground fighting has made for a deeply asymmetrical battle between Russian, Syrian and Iran-backed fighters and vastly outgunned anti-assad militias who have claimed this stretch since 2012.
Eastern Ghouta is a 40 sq mile agricultural belt to the east of Damascus, and one of a diminishing number of opposition strongholds. Government forces launched an offensive in Eastern Ghouta on Feb 18 and Mr Assad now controls 80 per cent of the region.
Yesterday, state media said Syrian troops had entered Saqba, a town in a southern pocket of Eastern Ghouta. It was the latest town to be captured by Syria and its allied militia in a swift advance over the past few days.
Yesterday saw a minor lull in fighting in some parts of Ghouta as the Syrian army gave rebels a mid-afternoon deadline to leave Harasta, the smallest of the three rebel-controlled parcels of land.
The outcome of this ultimatum was not clear at the time of going to press.
According to Russian monitors, more than 25,000 people left Eastern Ghouta yesterday through humanitarian corridors.
According to the UN, at least 20,000 left the area between March 11 and 17.