A spokesman for the YPG, which Turkey wants to clear from the area, says 10 people were killed

Turkish jets have bombed the Kurdish-controlled city of Afrin in northern Syria, as the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, promised to expand Turkey’s military border operations against a Kurdish group that has been the US’s key Syria ally in the war on Islamic State.

The raids came on the heels of a week of threats by Turkey, promising to clear the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from Afrin and its surrounding countryside, also called Afrin. Turkey’s military is calling the campaign Operation Olive Branch.

Early on Sunday, four rockets fired from Syria hit the Turkish southern border town of Kilis, 40 km from Afrin, damaging houses, state-run Anadolu Agency said. There were no casualties, it said.

Attack by Turkish forces on US-backed Kurds in Syria thought imminent Read more

Turkey says the YPG, a group it considers a terrorist organisation, is an extension of an outlawed Kurdish rebel group that it is fighting inside its own borders, and it has found common cause with Syrian opposition groups who view the YPG as a counter-revolutionary force in Syria’s multi-sided civil war.

Associated Press journalists at the Turkish border saw jets bombing positions in the direction of Afrin, as a convoy of armed pick-up trucks and buses believed to be carrying Syrian opposition fighters travelled along the border. Video from Turkey this week showed the military moving tanks to the frontier.

A spokesman for the Kurdish militia that controls the area said that ten people had been killed in the attack.

“Seven civilians were killed, including a child, as well as two female fighters and one male fighter,” said Birusk Hasakeh for the YPG in Afrin, adding that the child was an eight-year-old boy.

Earlier, the YPG’s political branch, the Democratic Union party (PYD), said that 25 civilians had been wounded in the bombing.

Ankara also said there were casualties but all of them were Kurdish militants.

Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said it was pulling back troops that had been deployed near Afrin, two days after Turkey’s military and intelligence briefs travelled to Moscow to discuss the planned operation. It said the group of observers was being relocated to another area. It was not immediately clear how many troops were affected by the move.



The YPG is the driving force behind a coalition of north Syrian forces allied with the US to battle Isis. With US support, including around 2,000 embedded forces, the coalition now controls close to a quarter of Syrian territory, concentrated mostly to the north and east of the Euphrates river.

Turkish leaders were infuriated by an announcement by the US military six days ago that it was going to create a 30,000-strong border force with the Kurdish fighters to secure northern Syria. Days later, secretary of state Rex Tillerson announced that the US would maintain a military presence with the Kurds for the foreseeable future.

Play Video 1:14 Tillerson: US military to maintain open-ended presence in Syria – video

Speaking in the city of Kütahya in western Turkey, Erdoğan announced an expansion to Turkish operations in Syria, promising to move on the Kurdish-controlled town of Manbij and its surrounding countryside after completing operations in Afrin. The operation would force out the Kurdish militia from all positions west of the Euphrates River.

In 2016, Turkey trained and equipped opposition forces to drive Kurdish fighters out of parts of north Syria, driving a wedge between two enclaves along the Turkish frontier. Turkish ground forces, including tanks and artillery, crossed into Syria with the fighters to establish a zone flanked by Afrin and Manbij that now serves as hub for Turkish operations inside the war-torn country.

Turkey’s prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, said the strikes on Afrin marked the start of a campaign to “eliminate the PYD and PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ party] and Daesh elements in Afrin,” referring to the Kurdish Democratic Union party and the Kurdistan Worker’s party respectively, and using an Arabic name for Isis. The PYD, PKK, and YPG all look to the Kurdish Marxist-nationalist leader Abdullah Öcalan as their guide. Öcalan is imprisoned by Turkey for waging a separatist movement in the eastern part of the country.

The air strikes were accompanied by waves of artillery strikes on the Afrin region.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, discussed the operation with Tillerson by phone after the US diplomat requested a conversation, Turkish officials said. They did not provide further details.