Syrian army to help Kurdish forces repel Turkish Invasion in Afrin: reports

February 19, 2018 By administrator

Syrian army to help Kurdish forces

The Damascus government and Kurdish forces have reportedly agreed to join forces in Afrin to counter an ongoing Turkish offensive. Syrian state media report that the deployment of pro-regime troops is imminent.

Damascus will deploy its militia fighters to Afrin “within the next few hours” to reinforce Kurds against the Turkish offensive, Syrian state agency SANA reported on Monday morning.

The move aims to “support the steadfastness of its people in confronting the aggression which Turkish regime forces have launched on the region,” SANA said, citing its correspondent in Aleppo. Syrian state television also announced that the deployment was imminent, without providing details.

Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reacted by saying any Syrian fighters deployed to “cleanse” the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian offshoot the Democratic Union Party (PYD) would have “no problems,” but if they enter to defend the Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers a terrorist organization linked to the PKK, then “nothing and nobody can stop us or Turkish soldiers.

Last month, Ankara launched an operation against the YPG which controls Afrin.

Monday’s developments come a day after a senior Kurdish official told Reuters that the Kurds had reached a deal with Damascus.

The agreement, supposedly brokered by Russia, further complicates the conflict in Northern Syria as rivalries and alliances among Kurdish forces, the Syrian government, rebel factions, Turkey, the United States and Russia become more entangled.

What the Kurds said

The agreement allows paramilitaries allied with the Syrian government to enter Afrin to support the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in fending off Turkish forces, the DPA news agency reported, citing an anonymous source.
Badran Jia Kurd, an adviser to the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria, told Reuters that Syrian army troops would deploy along some border positions in the Afrin region.
Jia Kurd said the agreement with Damascus on Afrin was strictly military with no wider political arrangements, but added: “We can cooperate with any side that lends us a helping hand in light of barbaric crimes and the international silence.”
Jia Kurd said there is opposition to the deal that could prevent it from being implemented.

What does this mean? The Damascus government and Kurdish forces each hold more territory than any other side in the Syrian civil war. Their cooperation could be pivotal as to how the conflict unfolds.

Who are they repelling? Ankara launched an air and ground offensive on the Afrin region in January against the YPG militia. It views the YPG as terrorists with links to an armed insurrection in Turkey. For the Turkish government, attacking Afrin is about assuring geopolitical interests and domestic security.

Are Kurdish goals compatible with Syria’s? President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the YPG have mostly avoided direct conflict. However, they have occasionally clashed and have very different visions for Syria’s future. Both believe in a possibility for a long-term agreement, but Assad has said he wants to take back the whole country.

How powerful are the Kurds? Since the onset of Syria’s conflict in 2011, the YPG and its allies have established three autonomous cantons in the north, including Afrin near the Turkish border. Their sphere of influence has expanded as they seized territory from the “Islamic State” group with the help of the US. However, Washington opposes the Kurds’ political ambitions, as does the Syrian government.

What happens next? Jia Kurd has said forces are to arrive in two days, but the deal has not been confirmed.

Report Kurdish forces launch big counter-offensive in northwest Afrin

February 1, 2018 By administrator

BEIRUT, LEBANON (7:40 P.M.) – The Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) launched a big counter-assault in the northwestern countryside of the Afrin region, tonight, striking the towns recently captured by the Turkish-backed rebels in the Bulbul District.

The main focus of this counter-assault appears to be the town of Bulbul, which was seized by the Turkish-backed Terrorist rebels FSA earlier today.

No gains have been reported thus far.

YPG counter-attacks are typically launched at night in order to evade the Turkish warplanes and choppers that stalk their positions in the Afrin region.

Syrian Army artillery shells Kurdish forces in Deir Ezzor: reports

September 25, 2017 By administrator

By Andrew Illingworth

BEIRUT, LEBANON (1:15 P.M.) – In addition to allegations coming in about an hour ago that Russian warplanes bombed the positions of Kurdish-led forces in eastern Deir Ezzor Governorate, official Kurdish social media sources are now also claiming that their defenses are being struck by Syrian Arab Army artillery.

According to reports from the official twitter account of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, in addition to Russian airstrikes targeting US-backed fighters around Conoco Gas Field, Syrian Army artillery is also carrying out a bombardment of the same area.

Kurdish sources say that the Syrian Army artillery bombardment consists of rocket and standard shelling attacks.

The latest reports claim that the attack is still ongoing.

Al-Masdar News cannot confirm anything at this time.

Source: https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-army-artillery-shells-kurdish-forces-deir-ezzor-reports-update/

Kurdish forces down Turkish helicopter bombing them over Iraqi Kurdistan – reports

March 3, 2016 By administrator

Reports have emerged that Kurds have shot down a helicopter over Iraqi Kurdistan, which they say was used in airstrikes against them. Turkish officials have made no comment, but a source confirmed to RT that the incident took place.

Previously Ankara acknowledged conducting airstrikes on alleged PKK targets in Iraq. Turkish military is also targeting Kurds inside the country and shelling Kurdish militias in northern Syria.

One sortie apparently went wrong for a Turkish assault helicopter as Iraqi Kurdish militia claim they shot the aircraft down.

Kani Xulam, from the American Kurdish Information Network, told RT that official Ankara would refrain from reporting any losses in operations against the Kurds, striving to portray the Turkish military as “an invincible power that cannot be beaten.”

The Turkish authorities are aiming to make the Kurds submit to them and “come down on their knees,” he said.

Xulam said “scores of Turkish soldiers” were taken prisoner by the Kurds with the Turkish government never acknowledging such facts.

In the case of the allegedly downed helicopter, there is no reference about the incident in Turkish media, yet the story is now emerging in Kurdish media, Xulam said.

No Turkish military losses ever make it into national mainstream media, Middle East political analyst Shwan Zulal told RT.

The Kurdish PKK militia, which may be responsible for the alleged downing of the Turkish helicopter, traditionally remains idle during the harsh winter months. However, it will be active from the beginning of spring, which explains why Turkey has recently been shelling Kurdish positions in the mountains, Zulal said.

With the military operation against the Kurds ongoing in Turkey for months now, the violence is likely to escalate further, Zulal predicted.

The Turkish military has been operating against Kurdish PKK militia in northern Iraq since the early 1990s.

In September 2015, the Turkish parliament prolonged a mandate allowing the deployment of its military in neighboring Syria and Iraq to fight Kurdish militants.

Early last December, Ankara started carrying out airstrikes targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) forces in northern Iraq.

Tensions have recently spiked between Ankara and Baghdad after Turkey deployed more than 100 troops equipped with tanks and artillery to Iraq’s northern Nineveh governorate, saying they will train forces battling Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Kurdish forces, YPG dominance across Syria border rattles Turkey’s nerves

June 16, 2015 By administrator

Jolted by the seizure of Tel Abyad, a small town on the other side of the Syrian border previously under control of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), by Kurdish forces, Ankara is coming to grips with the new reality of Kurds successfully carving out an enclave in northern Syria.

The discrepancies between the global coalition led by the US and Turkey in the fight against ISIL have recently been laid bare. Ankara has continued to express concern over the dominance of the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria. It accuses the Kurdish militia of deliberately attempting an ethnic cleansing of the area in a bid to change the demographic balance of the region in favor of the Kurds.

The fall of Tel Abyad into the hands of the YPG, the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and smaller Syrian rebel groups means the Syrian Kurds effectively control over 400 kilometers of the Syrian-Turkish border. The transition of the region into Kurdish control has also blocked the access routes of ISIL into Turkey. These channels were previously used to import foreign fighters to join the radical terrorist organization as well as get weapons and logistical equipment.

The Turkish government is very uncomfortable with the advances made by Kurdish militia in Syria, fearing it could aggravate separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish minority, which numbers in the millions.

Turkish FM: Kurdish militias persecuting civilians like ISIL and Assad forces

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, has said the Kurdish militia fighters are persecuting civilians in northern Syria and forcing them to flee in a similar way to ISIL militants and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

“Daesh [another name for ISIL] attacks and kills those it captures. The PYD/PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] seize certain regions and force people living there to migrate,” Çavuşoğlu told Turkish state broadcaster TRT during a trip to Saudi Arabia. “It doesn’t matter who comes; the regime, Daesh, the PYD, they are all persecuting civilians,” he said.

Security Analyst: ISIL being used a terror tactic to force changes of borders

Mahmut Akpınar a security analyst at the Ankara-based Center of Law, Ethics and Political Studies (HESA), explained to Today’s Zaman that the YPG is being shown as a lesser threat, in contrast to ISIL, and both are being used as tools to change borders in the Middle East.

Stating that the YPG’s advance into Syria was the doing of international powerhouses to form an independent Kurdish state in the north of Syria, Akpınar said: “If the PKK [YPG] had taken these lands from the Free Syrian Army or the Assad regime, there would have been [political] ramifications, but because they seize it [the land] from ISIL, there is no problem. They [Western states] highlight ISIL to convince [the world] to accept the YPG.

“This is the reorganization of the Middle East by Western states 100 years after the Sykes-Picot agreement. ISIL is being used as a design tool, it was brought about as a monster, to scare people, thus justifying all land seized from it,” he said.

Finally, Akpınar said the sole beneficiary of the redesign of the Middle East in its current state would be Israel and Iran. “All of the countries that challenged Israel during the Arab-Israeli wars have been pacified. There was Iraq, Syria and Egypt in the Arab-Israeli war, and now all of these actors have been placated.”

The Arab-Israeli conflict refers to the political tension and military conflicts between certain Arab countries and Israel, with the first taking place in 1948 and resulted in the formation of the state of Israel in its current form.

Erdoğan: Kurds controlling border a threat to Turkey

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also voiced concern about the latest YPG offensive, pointing out that Kurds were taking over areas from which Arabs and Turkmen were being forcibly displaced. Erdoğan accused the West of backing what he called Kurdish terrorists and said the outcome could eventually threaten Turkey’s border.

Backed by air forces from the global anti-ISIL coalition, the YPG has made swift gains and pushed back ISIL after months of heavy fighting in the struggle to defend Kobani — another contested town on the Turkish-Syrian border. The retention of Kobani was seen as a turn in the tide against ISIL. Turkey was forced to absorb more than 150,000 civilians during brutal clashes in and around Kobani in late 2014.

Erdoğan said in October that it was wrong of the United States to air-drop military supplies to Kurdish fighters defending Kobani, as some weapons were seized by ISIL militants surrounding it.

“What was done here, on this subject, turned out to be wrong. Why did it turn out wrong? Because some of the weapons they dropped from those C130s were seized by ISIL,” Erdoğan said during a news conference in Ankara.

“I have difficulty understanding why Kobani is so strategic for them because there are no civilians there, just around 2,000 fighters,” Erdoğan said. “At first they didn’t say yes to peshmergas, but then they gave a partial yes, and we said we would help.” The peshmergas, literally meaning “one who confronts death,” are the military forces of Iraqi Kurdistan.

“We see signs that work is being done on a formula to bring in other elements and combine cantons,” he said, referring to two regions controlled by Kurdish forces in northern Syria.