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Despite US warning, Turkey shells Syria's Kurdish-held Afrin region

January 20, 2018 at 1:20 pm

Update 15:41: BREAKING: Russia moves troops out of Afrin, as Turkey steps up it’s bombing on US-allied militia

Update 15.29: Turkey has now started air raids on Afrin; supporting the Turkish military, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has started ground skirmishes against YPG, the US-backed militia; YPG accuses Turkey of using the shelling as an excuse to launch a ground assault.

Reuters reports that Turkish artillery fired into Syria’s Afrin region on Friday in what Ankara said was the start of a military campaign against the Kurdish-controlled area.

The cross-border bombardment took place after days of threats from Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to crush the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin in response to growing Kurdish strength across a wide stretch of north Syria.

Direct military action against territory held by Kurdish militia would open a new front in Syria’s civil war and would see Ankara confronting Kurds allied to the United States at a time when Turkey’s relations with Washington are reaching breaking point.

“The operation has actually de facto started with cross-border shelling,” Turkish Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli said, adding that no troops had crossed into Afrin.

A US State Department official said such moves would undermine regional stability and would not help protect Turkey’s border security.

“We do not believe that a military operation serves the cause of regional stability, Syrian stability or indeed Turkish concerns about the security of their border,” the official told reporters, stressing he had limited information about Turkey’s reported military moves.

“The kind of threats or activities which these initial reports may be referring to, we don’t think advance any of these issues. They are destabilising.”

Read: Turkey will not allow arming Kurds in Syria, army chief says

The United States has instead called on Turkey to focus on the fight against Daesh militants and not take military action in Afrin.

Reuters TV filmed Turkish artillery at the border village of Sugedigi firing on Friday morning into Afrin region, and the YPG militia said Turkish forces fired 70 shells at Kurdish villages between midnight and Friday morning. Shelling continued in the late afternoon, said Rojhat Roj, a YPG spokesman in Afrin.

Roj said it was the heaviest Turkish bombardment since Ankara stepped up threats to take military action against the Kurdish region.

“YPG is ready to confront Turkish troops and FSA terrorists. If they dare to attack, we are ready to bury them one by one in Afrin,” a YPG statement said.

Separately, Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying that media reports on Russian military units withdrawing from the Afrin region had been denied, though he did specify who had denied them.

Turkey had sent its military chief to Moscow on Thursday to seek approval for an air campaign in Afrin, although Damascus warned it could shoot down any Turkish planes in its skies.

Read: US-led coalition helps build new Syrian force, angering Turkey