Fierce fighting as Kurds resist Turkish onslaught

SYRIA: Fierce fighting engulfed northern Syria yesterday as Turkey broadened its offensive against the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin.

The Kurdish forces, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, staged a determined counteroffensive overnight after initial advances by Turkish tanks and their Free Syrian Army (FSA) allies on Monday. The Kurds claimed to have recaptured the village of Adah Manli in the west of the enclave, close to the Turkish border.

The Turkish attack on Afrin has caused outrage among the Kurds’ many international supporters, but appears to have strong backing at home.

The YPG is the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, the guerrilla force that has waged an insurgency for three decades to try to win Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, killing thousands of policemen, troops and civilians.

The YPG is the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the coalition backed by the United States in eastern Syria in the battle against Islamic State.

The US has therefore found itself in the uncomfortable position of seeing one of its allies come under attack from another, Turkey, which is a member of Nato. It has called for restraint from Ankara but has not publicly condemned the assault.

Brett McGurk, Washington’s envoy to the coalition fighting Isis, which has relied on the YPG and local Arab allies to bear the brunt of the ground war, was reported to have visited the town of Kobani on the Turkish border in northern Syria to talk with Kurdish leaders.

Turkish tanks opened a new front yesterday, seizing a strategic hillside between Afrin city and the rebel-held border town of Azaz to the east.

They were also reported to have begun shelling the separate enclave in Syria’s northeast where Kurdish-led forces are supported by the US and other Western powers, threatening an international escalation of the conflict.

Both sides posted videos suggesting there were casualties. Despite resistance, the Turks and their allies, Turkish-backed remnants of the FSA who already control territory between Azaz and Jarabulus along Syria’s Turkish border, appeared to be making some progress towards Afrin city.

Colonel Ahmad Othman, the FSA commander, said the capture of the YPG encampment on the hillside known as Bersaya near Azaz would allow them to dominate the surrounding countryside. ‘‘We are now planning our next battles in order of tactical significance,’’ he said. – The Times