Turkish military and allies claim total control of key Syrian town
● Declaration by Erdogan after offensive against Kurdish militia
president said yesterday that the country’s military and allied Syrian forces had taken “total” control of the town centre of Afrin.
The town has been the target of a two-month offensive against a Syrian Kurdish militia, which said fighting was still under way.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Turkish flag and the flag of the Syrian opposition fighters had been raised in the town, previously controlled by the Kurdish militia known as the People’s Defence Units, or YPG.
“Many of the terrorists had turned tail and run away already,” Erdogan said in western Turkey.
Turkey views the Kurdish forces in the Afrin enclave along the border as terrorists linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency within Turkey.
Ankara launched the operation, codenamed Olive Branch, against the town and surrounding areas on 20 January, slowly squeezing the militia and hundreds of thousands of civilians into the town centre. Forty-six Turkish soldiers have been killed since then.
A Kurdish official, Hadia Yousef, said the YPG was still fighting in the town but had evacuated the remaining civilians because of “massacres”. However, Salih Muslim, a senior Kurdish official living in exile in Europe, tweeted that Kurdish fighters had withdrawn, saying “the struggle will continue and the Kurdish people will keep defending themselves”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nearly 200,000 people had fled the Afrin region in recent days amid heavy air strikes, entering Syrian government-held territory nearby. Syrian State TV broadcast footage of a long line of vehicles and civilians on foot leaving Afrin. Mr Erdogturkey’s an has said the people of Afrin will return.
Turkey’s military meanwhile tweeted that its forces were searching for landmines and explosives. Government spokesman Bekir Bozdag tweeted that Turkey would take steps to restore daily life and ensure access to food and health care. “Our job is not done yet, we have a lot more work – but terror and terrorists in Afrin are over,” he said.
The army posted a video on social media showing a soldier holding a Turkish flag and a man waving the Syrian opposition flag on the balcony of the district parliament building with a tank stationed on the street. The soldier called the capture a “gift” to the Turkish nation and to fallen soldiers on the anniversary of a famous First World War victory.
Turkey is marking the 103rd anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli, where the Ottoman Empire repelled an invasion by Allied forces after several months of heavy fighting.
Footage by Turkey’s private Dogan news agency showed Syrian fighters shooting in the air in celebration.
In another Dogan video, a Syrian fighter is seen shooting at a statue symbolising the Kurdish new year celebrations that are also being held this week, before a bulldozer tries to pull it down. The statue is of Kawa, a mythological hero in Iran’s Zagros mountains who defeated a brutal ruler and lit fires to spread the news, ushering in spring.
The YPG has been a key US ally in the fight against Islamic State terrorists and seized large areas of northern and eastern Syria from the extremists with the help of coalition air strikes. Relations between Nato allies Turkey and the US have been tense over the latter’s support of the YPG.
Mr Erdogan has repeatedly said that Turkey will not allow a “terror corridor” along its border.
Turkey launched an earlier cross-border operation in 2016 to clear an area in northern Syria of Islamic State and the YPG, preventing the Kurdish group from linking Afrin with the much larger territories it holds to the east..