YPG plans hit-and-run attacks on Turkish and Syrian rebel forces after pulling out of besieged city

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Kurdish militants have vowed to wage a guerrilla war against the Turkish military and their Syrian rebel proxies after the latter swept into the northern Syrian city of Afrin, seizing control from Kurdish forces.



The Kurdish militia, the YPG, withdrew from Afrin before dawn on Sunday, members blending in with an exodus of up to 150,000 civilians who had been fleeing the city since Friday.

The Turks and their predominantly Arab allies moved quickly into the centre of Afrin and then its surrounds after more than seven weeks of clashes, which are thought to have claimed up to 250 civilian lives.



The rapid fall of Afrin – less than 48 hours after it was surrounded by the advancing Turks and Syrian rebels – belied expectations of a long, gruelling blockade, like the ongoing siege of eastern Ghouta by the Syrian military and its allies.



The withdrawing Kurdish forces framed their exit as a move to prevent more civilian suffering. However, up against a foe with heavier firepower and a modern airforce, and with no foreign backer of their own, the Kurds faced a formidable battle to defend Afrin from advancing forces.

Their departure has opened up a new front in the Syrian war, giving Turkey leverage deep inside the north of the country and raising concerns that the intervention may spark a demographic shift in surrounding areas. Northern Syria is already an epicentre of the war and is teeming with displaced people from elsewhere in the country as well as foreign-backed rebel groups, Islamists, regional powers, and allies of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad – all pushing disparate agendas.

The mass exodus of Afrin residents and militants is being absorbed by already overstretched communities in the countryside north and west of Aleppo. Aid agencies are struggling to cater for the latest influx. The World Food Programme said it had distributed supplies to 25,000 people in the north over the weekend.



YPG officials among the exodus said some of the group’s members had remained in Afrin to mount guerrilla attacks against the Turks and their allies. “We wish to announce that our war against the Turkish occupation and the ... forces known as the Free [Syrian] Army has entered a new phase, moving from a war of direct confrontation to hit-and-run tactics, to avoid larger numbers of civilian deaths and to hurt the enemy.



“The victory announcement by [the Turkish president Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and his apparatchiks will only be sand in the eyes of the Turkish and international public opinion. Our forces everywhere in Afrin will be an ongoing nightmare for them.”



Timeline The Syrian war Show Hide Unprecedented protests demand civil liberties and the release of political prisoners after four decades of repressive rule by the Assad family. The regime represses demonstrations in Damascus and the southern city of Deraa but protests continue. Defecting army colonel Riad al-Asaad sets up the Turkey-based rebel Free Syrian Army. Islamist groups join the revolt. Regime forces take control of the rebel stronghold in Homs after a month of bombardment. Other bloody operations are carried out, notably in the central city of Hama, after massive anti-regime protests. More than 1,400 people die in a chemical weapon attack on rebel-held districts near Damascus. The US and Assad ally Russia agree a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, averting punitive US strikes against the regime. Hostilities between jihadists and rebel groups turn into an open war in the north. The group that will become known as Islamic State takes Raqqa – the first provincial capital to fall out of regime control – from rebel forces. A US-led coalition launches airstrikes against Isis in Syria. The strikes benefit Kurdish groups, which since 2013 have run autonomous administrations in Kurdish-majority areas. Russia launches airstrikes in support of Assad's troops, who are on the back foot. Russian firepower helps turn the tables for the regime, which begins to retake rebel-held territory. The regime retakes Syria's second city, Aleppo. Russia and Iran, as backers of the Syrian regime, and Turkey, a supporter of the rebels, organise talks in Kazakhstan, between representatives of both sides. The process leads to the creation of four "de-escalation zones". A sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun kills more than 80 people, prompting Washington to attack a regime airbase. Further complicating an already drawn-out conflict, Turkey launches an operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units which, with US support, played a key role in beating back Isis. Regime launches a ferocious assault on the remaining rebel-held enclave near Damascus, eastern Ghouta. In under four weeks, the Russian-backed onslaught kills more than 1,200 civilians.

US president Donald Trump surprises advisors and allies alike by declaring victory over the Islamic State and promising to withdraw US troops from the conflict. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announce that they have driven Isis out of their final stronghold of Baghuz. At least 11,000 SDF fighters, a Kurdish-led militia which includes Arab, Syriac and Turkmen units, have died in the four-year military campaign against the group in Syria. Britain and France agree to deploy additional special forces in Syria to allow the US to withdraw its ground troops from the fight against remaining Isis forces in the country. Rebels withdraw from Khan Sheikhun in north-west Syria, clearing the way for pro-government forces to enter the town – a key moment in the war for Idlib province, the country’s last major rebel stronghold.

Earlier on Sunday, Erdoğan had said: “Most of the terrorists have already fled with tails between their legs. Our special forces and members of the Free Syrian Army are cleaning the remains and the traps they left behind.”



Afrin had been a relative safe haven throughout the war in contrast to the rest of Syria’s combustible north; not far from the Turkish border in the country’s north-west it had been a majority Kurdish enclave over recent years.

Ankara had grown increasingly irritated by the presence of the YPG in the city, which is ideologically aligned to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with whom it has fought a deadly, decades-long, insurgency in Turkey’s south-east. The YPG’s second and larger stronghold covers an almost 300-mile stretch of the border from the Euphrates river to Iraq.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army fighters celebrate after they seized control of Afrin. Photograph: Aref Tammawi/EPA

In between is a 60-mile-wide area of Syria in which Ankara has developed a deep presence over the last 18 months – primarily to keep the Kurds from closing the gap. Kurdish groups had moved into one town in the area – Tel Rifaat – under Russian cover nearly two years ago.



The YPG had called on Russia to defend them in Afrin. However, Moscow had refused, allowing Turkish jets into the airspace it controls over northern Syria to carry out attacks. Russia and the US had previously backed the YPG – for different reasons – but both sat out the clashes in a bid to protect their ties with Ankara.



Syria’s new exiles: Kurds flee Afrin after Turkish assault Read more

While Russia and Turkey have found an accommodation over Syria, Ankara and Washington remain at odds over the former’s support for Kurdish groups in the north-east, which the US military has used as a proxy to fight Islamic State (Isis).

Regional officials said Turkey was likely to try to replicate in Afrin its role in towns such as Manbij and al-Bab, in which it has helped to rebuild war damage and boost the town’s services, all the while consolidating a foothold of its own.

Turkey has flagged plans to advance towards Manbij, where the US military maintains a base alongside its Kurdish allies. Such a move, which would potentially pitch two Nato allies against each other, has been repeatedly talked down by Washington.

