Turkey presses offensive against Kurdish militia
HASSA, Turkey — Turkish troops and Syrian opposition forces attacked a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria on Sunday in their bid to oust from the area a U.S.-allied Kurdish militia, which responded with a hail of rockets on Turkish towns, killing at least one refugee.
The Turkish offensive on Afrin, code-named Operation Olive Branch, started Saturday and has heightened tensions in the already complicated Syrian conflict, threatening to further strain ties between NATO allies Turkey and the United States.
On Sunday, the United States urged Turkey to exercise restraint and ensure that the offensive is “limited in scope and duration.” A statement by State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert also asked Turkey to be “scrupulous to avoid civilian casualties,” adding that all parties involved in Syria should focus on defeating the Islamic State group.
The Syrian government, Iran and Egypt condemned the attack, which activists said has killed at least 18 civilians in the Kurdish-held enclave, Afrin, in the first 24 hours. Turkish officials said 11 rockets launched from Syria have landed in Turkish towns along the border, killing at least one Syrian refugee and injuring 47.
France called for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss the developments and urged Turkish authorities “to act with restraint in a context where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating in several regions of Syria.”
Turkish officials said the troops entered Afrin a day after dozens of Turkish jets and artillery units at the border pounded Syrian Kurdish targets. A spokesman for the Kurdish fighters said the attack was repelled.
Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, a terror organization and a security threat because of its affiliation with Kurdish rebels fighting in southeastern Turkey.
The group controls Afrin, in Syria’s northwestern Aleppo province, as well as nearly 25 percent of Syrian territory, to the east along Turkey’s border. The YPG also forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main U.S. ally against the Islamic State group in Syria.
U.S. support for the Kurdish militia has been a cause of perpetual conflict between Ankara and Washington, which has backed the Kurdish militia.
U.S. officials have said that the administration had appealed to Turkey not to go ahead with the offensive. A Turkish operation there could have an impact on U.S. operations further east in Syria, the officials said.
The operation, for which Turkey has also rallied nearly 10,000 Syrian opposition fighters, could spill into a wider Turkish-Kurdish confrontation inside Turkey. There is an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Kurdish fighters in the Afrin district, the Turkish prime minister said.
The Afrin district houses around 800,000 civilians, including displaced people from earlier years of the Syrian war.