US-backed Kurds brace for renewed Turkish assault
A US-supported Syrian enclave braced for an assault by Turkish forces as the area’s top commander called on Washington to do more to prevent a threatened ground invasion.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s forces launched air, drone and artillery strikes on northeastern Syrian towns and cities for a fourth day yesterday. Some 18 civilians and three soldiers have been killed, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the USbacked force in the area.
The attacks have sent ripples of fear through a region that is no stranger to threats from its neighbour. The Turkish government has fought militants from Turkey’s Kurdish minority at home for decades, and it views the SDF, dominated by Syrian Kurds, as a threat to its national security. Turkish forces last invaded the enclave in 2019, after what Erdogan’s administration appeared to view as a greenlight from President Donald Trump.
Erdogan is threatening to repeat that assault with fresh ground forces, framing the strikes as retaliation for an attack in central Istanbul that killed six people and wounded dozens more on a bustling thoroughfare last week. No group has declared responsibility for the attack.
‘‘Those who condemn the attack in Istanbul with crocodile tears have revealed their real faces with their reactions to the operation that we began immediately after,’’ Erdogan said in a speech to members of his party gathered in Ankara. ‘‘We have the right to take care of ourselves.’’
A US-led military coalition joined the fight against Islamic State forces in 2014 after the militants seized 106,000 square kilometres across Iraq and Syria. In Syria, the US quickly chose Kurdish-led troops as their partner force. Three and a half years after the Islamic State was routed, hundreds of American troops remain stationed in territory, in support of SDF forces still battling militant remnants, are now under threat of invasion.
In an interview with The Washington Post, General Mazloum Kobane Abdi, the SDF’s top commander and Washington’s strongest ally in Syria, urged Western allies to strongly oppose further Turkish attacks, arguing that Western pressure could avert a ground operation.
‘‘It’s not news to anyone that Erdogan has been threatening the ground operation for months, but he could launch this operation now,’’ said Abdi.
‘‘This war, if it happens, won’t benefit anybody. It will affect many lives, there will be massive waves of displacement, and a humanitarian crisis.’’