AFRIN: Turkey vowed on Monday to expand its operation in northern Syria to other Kurdish-held areas after its troops and allied forces seized control of the city of Afrin in a major blow to the Kurds.

A day after Turkish-led forces entered the city virtually unopposed, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the fight would now be taken to other Kurdish areas of northern Syria.

“We will continue this process until we entirely eliminate this corridor, including in Manbij, Ayn al-Arab, Tal Abyad, Ras al-Ayn and Qamishli,” said the Turkish leader, in a characteristically bullish mood.

Syria’s civil war entered its eighth year this week with heavy fighting on two fronts — around Afrin and in the rebel enclave of Eas­tern Ghouta near Damascus.

In Afrin, the Kurdish Peo­ple’s Protection Units (YPG) could do little when Syrian Arab fighters backed by Nato’s second-largest army thrust into the city on Sunday.

The fighters, mostly former rebels who fought Pre­sident Bashar al-Assad, celebrated their victory by des­troying the statue of Kur­dish hero Kawa and looting shops and other property. The pillaging drew widespread condemnation, inclu­ding from Syrian oppo­­­s­­ition groups supporting the Tur­kish intervention.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2018