Turkish Military and Allied Militia Capture Afrin in Syria, Drive Out Kurdish Rebels

Turkey’s army backed by a rebel group of fighters called Free Syria Army have have taken control of the centre of the Syrian-Kurdish city of Afrin.

Reports say that after intense fighting and a multiple-fronted attack, Turkey and its allied fighters drove out Kurdish militia fighters who had taken control of the city last year after defeating Islamic State fighters. Aljazeera reported that fighters waved flags and tore down the statue of a legendary Kurdish figure after claiming the city centre on Sunday.

The capture of the Afrin comes after a two-month long Turkish-led operation which aimed to rid the border region of the Kurdish militia (YPG) that Turkey considers a terrorist group. Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that "units of the Free Syrian Army... took control of the centre of Afrin this morning".

Reports of casualties range from 280 civilians to over 800 civilians dead, although this is denied by Ankara.

A Turkish armed forces Twitter page posted a video of troops displaying the nation's flag in Afrin's centre.

Turkish military spokesman Bekir Bozdag said the campaign would continue until the area around Afrin was secure. He said the YPG's "terrorism corridor" in Afrin was over.

Despite the ceding of ground to the Free Syrian Army, Afrin's leaders said on Sunday that Kurdish-dominated forces will shift from direct confrontation to guerrilla tactics. "Our forces are present all over Afrin's geography. These forces will strike the positions of the Turkish enemy and its mercenaries at every opportunity," Othman Sheikh Issa, co-chair of the Afrin executive council, said in a televised statement. "Our forces all over Afrin will become a constant nightmare for them," he added.

This portends badly for Afrin which is home to almost a million civilians. It had drawn people from other areas which had taken shelter in Afrin as the Kurdish militia have established a reputation for fair governance. The latest round of fighting had caused 150,000 civilians fled the city since last Wednesday, according Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor. Turkey's government spokesman Bekir Bozdag said the military campaign would continue to secure areas around Afrin and make sure food and medicine were available.

Turkey’s action against the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed wing YPG to be "terrorist groups" began after the U.S. government’s announcement of creating a 30,000 border guard force to secure areas freed from Islamic State rule. The announcement was met with anger by Ankara which had long maintained that YPG had ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that operates on Turkey’s soil. The PKK has waged a decades-long armed fight against the Turkish state that has killed tens of thousands of people.

The YPG has come to control large swaths of northern Syria, including Afrin, in the course of the eight-year Syrian war, particularly through fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in an US-backed umbrella organisation named Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The US support for the Kurdish-dominated SDF has created an ongoing diplomatic crisis between the two NATO allies.

It remains to be seen what U.S. government forces would do if Turkey takes its fight  against YPG further into Syrian territory as U.S. forces are working together with Kurdish-militia to prevent territory from either falling back into the hands of IS fighters as well as the Syrian government’s forces.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 19, 2018 11:11 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).