The Turkish army was yesterday engaged in intense clashes with Kurdish militia inside Syria as the United States voiced alarm Ankara’s operation could endanger attempts to bring peace to the conflict-torn country, reports AFP from Hassa, Turkey. US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged Turkey yesterday to show restraint in its offensive against a Kurdish militia in Syria. “We take very seriously Turkey’s legitimate security concerns and we are committed to work with our NATO allies on those,” Mattis said in Jakarta at the start of an Asian tour.
“We urge Turkey to exercise restraint in the military action and the rhetoric.” Meanwhile, Syrian Kurdish leaders called on civilians yesterday to take up arms to defend the Afrin enclave against a Turkish assault now in its fourth day. “We announce a general mobilisation and we invite all children of our people to defend Afrin,” the Kurdish enclave’s autonomous administration said in a statement. Its spokesman Rezan Hedo told AFP: “It is an invitation for all Kurds in Syria to take up arms.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed at the funeral of the first Turkish soldier to be killed in the cross-border campaign that Ankara would emerge victorious from the campaign.
Turkey on Saturday launched operation “Olive Branch” aimed at rooting out the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Ankara sees as a terror group, from its Afrin enclave in northern Syria.
The campaign has caused ripples of concern among Turkey’s NATO allies, especially the United States which is still working closely with the YPG to defeat Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria and fears the offensive will be a distraction. In his strongest comments yet on the offensive, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called for Turkey to show
“restraint”. He warned the offensive “disrupts what was a relatively stable area in Syria and distracts from the international effort to defeat” IS, on a visit to Indonesia.
Turkish artillery on Tuesday pounded targets of the YPG inside Syria, the state-run Anadolu news agency said. Meanwhile, Turkish drones were also carrying out attacks, state television said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said “fierce clashes” were continuing especially north and southwest of Afrin. As well as the artillery and air strikes, Turkish ground troops and Ankara-backed Syrian rebels have punched over the border several kilometres (miles) into Syrian territory, taking several villages, according to state media.
After intense exchanges, Turkey’s forces took control of the hill of Barsaya, a key strategic point in the Afrin region. The Observatory said 25 Ankara-backed rebels and 26 Kurdish fighters had been killed in the fighting so far.