Turkey intensifies Syria campaign

Hassa, Turkey  : Turkey yesterday stepped up its offensive against Kurdish militia in Syria for a ninth, in a campaign that has strained relations with the United States.

After several days of poor visibility because of heavy rain and fog, Turkish warplanes and artillery took advantage of the clear skies and pounded the hill of Barsaya near the Kurdish town of Afrin in northwestern Syria, official news agency Anadolu said.

Turkey launched operation “Olive Branch” on January 20 against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin, supporting Syrian opposition fighters with ground troops and air strikes.

While Turkey brands the YPG a “terror” group, the militia has received support from the US, its fighters spearheading the battle against the Islamic State group across swathes of Syria.

Despite souring relations with NATO ally Washington, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to expand the offensive against the YPG to Manbij, east of Afrin.

And in a sign the Turkish campaign has rendered prospects for peace in Syria even fainter, authorities in the war-torn country’s Kurdish autonomous region said they will not attend peace talks in Russia’s Sochi.

“We said before that if the situation remained the same in Afrin we could not attend Sochi,” regional official Fawza al-Yussef said.

Rebel backer Turkey is one of the sponsors of the talks in the Black Sea resort on Monday and Tuesday, along with Damascus allies Russia and Iran.

Towers of smoke 

Turkey’s air and artillery strikes on Sunday were even fiercer than previous days, said an AFP correspondent on the Syrian-Turkish border who saw towers of smoke rising into the sky.

Turkish channel NTV broadcast live footage Sunday showing rocket fire targeting Barsaya hill, located to the north of Afrin, near the strategic border town of Azaz.

“I spoke earlier with a commander who said: ‘With God’s help, we will take over Barsaya very soon,’” Erdogan said in a speech in Corum in northern Turkey.

Turkish troops and their Syrian opposition allies said Monday they had captured the hill, before losing it again a few hours later.

Sunday’s battles “are very fierce on Barsaya ... which is strategic because it overlooks Azaz on the Syrian side and Kilis on the Turkish side”, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.