ANKARA: Turkey will launch a new operation in Syria within days against a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers a terrorist group, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

“We will start an operation to free the east of the Euphrates from the separatist terrorist organisation in the next few days,” Erdogan said during a speech in Ankara, referring to territory held by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Turkey says the YPG is a “terrorist offshoot” of the outlawed Kurdistan Wor­kers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. The PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

American forces have worked closely with the YPG under the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance against the IS extremist group.

“The target is never American soldiers but terrorist organisation members active in the region,” Erdogan told the audience at a defence industry summit.

Erdogan claimed Turkey was not being protected from terrorists but “terrorists were being protected” from possible action by Turkey.

Elizabeth Teoman, analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said Erdogan may be threatening the attacks “to compel a change in US policy regarding the US observation posts along the Syrian-Turkish border”.

She added that “Turkey may attempt to target YPG rear areas without a definitive US presence in the form of an observation posts.”

Turkey has previously launched two operations in northern Syria. The first offensive began in August 2016 with Turkish forces supporting Syrian opposition fighters against IS and was completed by March 2017.

Hundreds of bodies found in mass graves

Seven mass graves containing hundreds of unidentified bodies have been unearthed near the former IS group stronghold of Albu Kamal in eastern Syria, official news agency SANA said.

Most of the more than 100 bodies recovered so far at the site appear to “have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment before execution,” it said, accusing IS of killing the victims.

Work was under way to retrieve the rest of the bodies from the graves in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, SANA said in its report published late Tuesday.

It released a video showing forensic experts in protective clothing recovering remains, and corpses laid out on the ground in a row under white sheets.

A Syrian Red Crescent official said the main focus at present was identifying the remains already recovered which included those of several women.

“Exhumations will resume afterwards,” the official said, asking not to be identified.

“The bodies show signs of torture and some were blindfolded and handcuffed.”

IS has been held responsible for multiple atrocities during its reign of terror, including mass executions and decapitations.

In recent months, both Syria and Iraq have discovered a number of mass graves in areas previously occupied by the jihadists.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2018