WEB DESK
At least 18 civilians have been killed in the Turkish military campaign against Syria’s Kurdish-held Afrin enclave in northern Syria. Turkish ground troops have crossed into northern Syria as part of a major offensive to push out Kurdish militia, which Turkey regards as terrorists.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths occurred in Afrin and surrounding villages, as Turkey started its offensive on Saturday by airstrikes and shelling and commenced its ground incursion yesterday to drive out the Kurdish forces from border areas between Syria and Turkey.
The Kurdish group, known as the YPG, is active in the Afrin region. It says it has repelled Turkish troops in the area and retaliated with rocket fire on Turkish border areas. The militia forms a crucial part of a US-backed alliance battling Islamic State (IS) terrorists in Syria.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to crush the YPG very quickly, but the US is urging Turkish restraint in order to avoid civilian casualties.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that the Turkish aggression on Afrin cannot be separated from the Turkish policies undertaken since the first day of the Syrian crisis to support terrorism and the terrorist groups in Syria.