DAMASCUS, SYRIA (2:45 P.M.) – A Kurdish military group said it has launched a series of attacks targeting locations and bases for the Turkish military in the northern Syrian city of Afrin.
Afrin Liberation Forces, a newly-formed Kurdish group, declared it had blown up an explosive device near a Turkish army base in Marimeen village of Afrin region.
The attack, which took place on September 22, has allegedly killed and injured several Turkish soldiers.
Turkish authorities neither confirmed nor denied the attack.
Footage released by the group show a Turkish military post under attack by an ATGM.
Assaults by the Afrin Liberation Forces have escalated recently after Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan announced his forces’ readiness to initiate a full-scale offensive against the Kurdish groups in northern Syria.
“If no specific measures are taken there [in the safe zone] within two weeks, we can start our own operation,” Erdogan said after the Russia-Turkey-Iran summit on Syria in the Turkish capital.
In response, Turkish armed groups said it will fight off the ‘Turkish invasion’, promising a ‘decisive response’ to any military action by Turkey.
The Turkish military and its Free Syrian army proxies control parts of northern Syria following two military operations in 2016 and 2018 (including Afrin) against the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK); both blacklisted as terror organization by Turkey.
Erdogan, who announced that his country will not allow terrorists to appear in the area created on the border with Syria, has proposed to turn it into a refugee city.
“For the refugees there (on the Syrian border), it is necessary to create a city for them to participate in agriculture. I explained to my colleagues that it is necessary to build infrastructure for them. It is necessary to prevent the formation of a terrorist corridor,” the Turkish president said after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Ankara on Monday.
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