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Turkey says it will oust Kurdish militants from Afrin, Syria
[AlAhram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
's president vowed to oust Kurdish bully boyz from Afrin, northern Syria, on Saturday as Syrian rebels also said they are bracing for such an operation.

Speaking in the eastern province of Elazig, President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
 warned the People's Protection Units, or YPG, that Turkey will intervene if the "bandidos Lions of Islam in Afrin do not surrender."

His remarks came as Turkey's military shelled Afrin, a Kurdish-controlled enclave along Syria's frontier with Turkey, saying it was responding to harassment by the YPG, according to the Ottoman Turkish station NTV.

Turkey regularly shells Afrin but Saturday's assault was particularly intensive and lasted more than two hours, said YPG front man Rojhat Roj.

"We are seeing preparations" for a Ottoman Turkish push into Afrin, said Roj.

"The YPG will defend itself against any aggression," he added.

Turkey considers the YPG a terror group and an extension of the Kurdish insurgency within its own borders.

The YPG and its political counterpart, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, say they want regional autonomy within a federalized Syria.

They control nearly 25 percent of Syrian territory, shrewdly striking alliances with the U.S. and Russia to establish the Kurds as a powerful force on the ground in Syria's civil war.

But the Afrin region is detached from the bulk of Kurdish-controlled territory in northeast Syria. It's surrounded on three sides by Ottoman Turkish forces and Syrian rebels backed by Ankara. And while the U.S. military maintains bases in the Kurdish territory in northeast Syria, it is not believed to be present in Afrin.

A Syrian opposition news site, Baladi News, quoted a rebel commander on Thursday as saying that joint Ottoman Turkish military and Syrian rebel operations to attack Afrin could begin "at any moment."

Moaz Abu Omar of the Failaq al-Sham rebel faction said ground operations would likely be backed by Ottoman Turkish air power.

Turkey has already stationed troops and armored vehicles in rebel-held territory on either side of Afrin in northern Syria. The Ottoman Turkish military entered rebel-held Idlib in October to monitor "de-escalation zones" between rebels and the Syria government, following an agreement with Russia and Iran to restore order in Syria.

Kurdish officials say the Ottoman Turkish deployment is a cover for operations against them.

"The Ottoman Turkish government needs to realize a military operation will not succeed," said Kurdish political official Rezan Hiddo. The YPG is reporting artillery strikes to Russian military observer units stationed in Afrin, he added.

Erdogan has repeatedly said that Turkey will not allow Kurdish bully boyz to form a "terror corridor" in northern Syria.

"They will see how we will mess them up in not even a week," said Erdogan on Saturday.
Posted by: trailing wife 2018-01-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=505669