Turkish soldier killed in clashes with Kurdish militants in Syrian Kurdistan
Turkey’s Defense Ministry said one soldier was killed and five were injured during clashes with Kurdish militants in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) in northern Syria on Wednesday.
The casualties, which the ministry said occurred during clashes with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) took place in the area where Turkey carried out its Olive Branch Operation in 2018, when the Turkish army wrested the Kurdish Afrin region from the hands of Syrian Kurdish forces.
The Britain-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said it was a rocket attack on a Turkish position in northern Aleppo.
Washington has for years supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). But U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the pullout from Syria.
The Syrian Kurdish PYD party and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
In 2013, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD — the political branch of the YPG — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish and Arab authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.
In January 2018, Turkish military forces backed pro-Ankara Syrian mercenary fighters to clear the YPG from its northwestern enclave of Afrin. In March 2018, the operation was completed with the capture of the Kurdish city of Afrin.
The flags of Turkey and Syrian rebel groups were raised in the Kurdish Afrin city and a statue of Kurdish hero Kawa, a symbol of resistance against oppressors, was torn down.
Residents of the Kurdish city and Human right groups accuse Turkey and pro-Ankara fighters of kidnappings for ransom, armed robberies and torture.
Turkey fears the creation of a Kurdish autonomous region or Kurdish state in Syrian Kurdistan could encourage separatism amongst its own Kurds, according to analysts.
Analysts believe that Turkey is using the YPG as a pretext to invade Syrian Kurdistan and to undermine the Kurdish autonomous regions.
Turkey views the U.S.-backed YPG Kurdish militia as a “terrorist offshoot” of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
Source: Turkish soldier killed in clashes with Kurdish militants in Syrian Kurdistan