(ANTIWAR.COM) — Turkey announced Monday that they are continuing to intensify their invasion of the Afrin District in northern Syria, a district held by the Kurdish YPG. Turkey began shelling the area on Friday, and invaded over the weekend.
Fighting raged throughout Monday, with the Kurdish YPG reporting that they’d retaken strategic areas they’d lost earlier in the fight. Turkey also confirmed their first soldier to have been killed in the fighting.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 54 killed overall in the fighting, including 19 Turkish-backed fighters, 26 Kurds, and a number of unidentified people. They also reported 22 civilians killed, though Turkey’s Foreign Ministry dismissed those as Kurdish lies.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey remains determined to take Afrin from the Kurds, saying there is “no turning back” now that the invasion has started, while other officials said they expect a quick victory in the fight.
US Struggles With Fighting Between Two Key Allies
(ANTIWAR.COM) — US warnings and calls for restraint have failed, and Turkey has invaded Syria’s Afrin District, beginning what could be a protracted battle with the US-backed Kurdish YPG. Two major US allies are in open conflict.
US allies have often clashed in the course of the Syrian War, but this is shaping up to be a long military campaign by Turkey, which has been looking to push against the Kurds for quite some time.
The US is so far just calling for “restraint,” but their involvement in the fight could come quite quickly, as Turkish officials have repeatedly said after Afrin, they’ll be attacking the YPG-held city of Manbij, a city that has US troops embedded within.
The US initially sent troops to Manbij to try to deter a Turkish invasion, betting they wouldn’t want to risk causing casualties to a fellow NATO member. That the fight is already ongoing now may change that calculation.
Moreover, Turkey has been complaining about US support for the Kurds for years, and is now demanding that the US totally end all connections with the YPG if they want to “work together,” something the US is unlikely to do.
US intentions to keep troops in Syria for the long-term depend heavily on the idea of the YPG retaining a lot of territory to host those US troops within. Finding a way to retain that territory while still giving Turkey the major anti-Kurdish offensive they want is going to be a struggle, and one which could do long-term harm to US-Turkey relations.
Syrian Kurds May Send Reinforcements to Fight Turkey
(ANTIWAR.COM) — The SDF, the umbrella group dominated by the Kurdish YPG, has reported on Monday that they are openly studying the possibility of sending reinforcements into the Afrin District of northern Syria, aiming to support the defense of the district.
Over the weekend, Turkey attacked the Afrin District, which is the western-most Kurdish-held district in Syria. Turkish officials have suggested that this is just the start of a broader invasion of the Syrian Kurdistan.
Having talked up the invasion well in advance, Turkey gave the YPG time to mobilize a lot of defenses in Afrin. Still, the invasion by Turkey, and some 25,000 Turkish-backed rebels may have them deciding that they need reinforcements.
This is especially true because Kurdish officials say they intend to launch a substantial counterattack against Turkey, and the SDF may decide they want to commit those forces to the battle sooner rather than later.
By Jason Ditz / Republished with permission / ANTIWAR.COM / Report a typo
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