AFRIN, NEW NAME OF ERDOGAN’S GAME IN NORTHERN SYRIA

By: Mostafa Amin

Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been going to great lengths to gain a secure foothold for his troops in Northern Syria. Now, it is widely believed that Turkish attack on Us-backed Kurds in northern Syria is imminent. The area the Turkish forces will most likely attack is the 60—mile stretch extending from Afrin to Manbij, where some of the most ferocious battles in the scramble for control over that part of Syria have been going on.

Erdogan made his expansionist intentions clear when he said that the imminent Turkish offensive would be a joint operation involving his troops supported by Syrian rebels backed by Ankara. This is probably an attempt to set up a barrier between the north-east and a smaller Kurdish presence along Syria’s north-west border. Analysts see this as Erdogan’s way of responding to Washington’s announcement that it would raise a border force of 30,00 personnel from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Defense Force (SDF), which gained international acclaim in the battle against Deash (ISIS) in that part of Syria. Turkey has frequently criticized U.S. support of the SDF due to the involvement of the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel), often referred to as YPG, which it views as an extension of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which is seen as a “terrorist” organization in Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.

Turkish chief of General Staff General Hulusi Akar said, at a NATO meeting in Brussels on Tuesday,  that Turkey would not allow what he called ” an extension of the PKK to be given support and armed under the guise of being an ‘operational partner’ “.

According to the Anadolu news agency, an unnamed military source said that 24 Turkish armored vehicles, with military jammers, had entered “Southern Turkey’s Hatay province”. The armored vehicles, sources said, have been deployed along the Syrian border on Monday afternoon.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that Turkish forces and Syrian factions allied with Ankara opened fire, using their machineguns and rocketshells, on the villages of Iska, Sharidah and other areas in the village of Balfoniyyeh and the vicinity of Kafr Jannah and other areas in Mar’anaz and the area lying between YPG controlled areas and the areas controlled by the factions involved in the “Euphrates Shield” operation. These attacks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, caused material damage in the targeted areas, “but no information about casualties”

Following these attacks, Erdogan hinted at the possibility of a military operation in Manbig and Afrin, where Kurdish militia forces, considered to be a terrorist group by Ankara, are deployed. He said,” if the terrorists in Afrin do not surrender we will tear them down”.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yeldrim said Tuesday”we will protect our own borders”, adding that “terrorist groups” cannot protect Nato’s borders. By saying this, analysts say, he was slamming the recent U.S. decision to form a border force in Syria involving various Syrian opposition groups along with SDF elements. Meanwhile, Turkish leaders say that they may coordinate with Syrian opposition groups on the ground in an offensive in Afrin, as they did in their Euphrates Shield operation in 2016, climing that “this fight id for them. We are helping our brothers there, so that they can protect their own territories.”

On the other hand, Turkey called, on Wednesday,  on the two major powers propping up the Assad regime in Syria, the Rusian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran, to halt an air offensive on the rebel held Idlib province near Turkish borders, as bombing on that area intensified. This call and the imminent Afrin offensive are, simply, parts of a Turkish strategy aiming at occupying Northern Syria.