Since the Turkish Armed Forces and their allies, the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA) factions, seized the Syrian city of Afrin in March 2018, there's been an ongoing insurgency lead by a number of Kurdish groups, most prominent of which is the Afrin Liberation Forces (HRE).

Allied with, and fighting alongside HRE, is a small amount of TKP/ML TİKKO fighters. TİKKO is the armed wing of the "Turkish Marxist–Leninist/Communist Party", which has been fighting the Turkish state since the 1970s. TİKKO has more recently risen to greater prominence around the world through its fight against the Islamic State in Syria.

There appears to be only a limited number of TİKKO fighters taking part in armed actions against the Turkish-backed forces in Afrin, but they do look to be well armed.



It's rare to see the arms of those fighting in Afrin in detail, as videos released by HRE are typically low quality and do not show weaponry clearly, if at all. I was lucky enough though to be recently shown a selection of firearms currently in use by a cell of TİKKO fighters in Afrin, directly from the fighters themselves.

The favoured weapons of the group are assault rifles, either chambered in 5.56x45mm or 5.45x39mm ammunition. Although a number of videos show 7.62x39mm AKMs in use by HRE, this particular TİKKO cell fighting alongside them prefer using more modern rifles.