HASSA: Turkey on Monday intensified its offensive against Kurdish militia targets in Syria as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed there would be no stepping back in a campaign that has stoked concern among Ankara’s allies and neighbours.

The Turkish military on Saturday launched operation “Olive Branch”, its second major incursion into Syrian territory during the seven-year civil war.

The operation, where Turkish war planes and artillery are backing a major ground incursion launched with Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and Turkish tanks, aims to oust the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia from its enclave of Afrin.

Turkey considers the YPG to be a terror group and the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

“We are determined. Afrin will be sorted out. We will take no step back,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara.

But the operation is hugely sensitive as Washington relied on the YPG to oust fighters of the militant Islamic State (IS) group from their Syrian strongholds and the Kurdish militia now holds much of Syria’s north.

54 combatants killed

State-run news agency Anadolu said ground forces had already taken 15 villages and other locations in their advance into Syria.

Meanwhile, Turkish artillery fired shells on YPG targets inside Syria and ground troops opened a new front by moving on Afrin from the town of Azaz to the east, state media said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a total of 22 Syrian civilians had been killed by Turkish strikes in the operation and two more by Kurdish fire.

It said 54 Syrian combatants had been killed, including 19 Ankara-backed rebels, 26 Kurdish fighters and nine unidentified figures.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Monday he was “concerned” about the offensive, saying the United States was in Syria with the aim of defeating the militants.

But Erdogan expressed impatience with US demands to set a clear timetable, saying the campaign would be over “when the target is achieved”.

“How long have you been in Afghanistan? Is that over in Iraq?” he said, referring to the current US military presence in those countries which began with 2001 and 2003 invasions.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2018