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Kurdish forces retake strategic mountaintop in northeast Afrin
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) have imposed full control over the strategic mountaintop of Jabal Barsaya, today, after a fierce battle with the Ottoman Turkish-backed rebels.

The battle for Jabal Barsaya began three days ago, when the Ottoman Turkish-backed rebels attempted to capture this mountaintop in the northeastern part of the Afrin Canton.

While they were able to seize several hilltops and trenches, the Ottoman Turkish-backed rebels were never able to fully take control of Jabal Barsaya, as the YPG forces continued to hold their ground.

Jabal Barsaya is the highest point in the Afrin Canton; if captured by the Ottoman Turkish-backed rebels, they would immediately have fire control over many towns south of the mountaintop.

Turkey says 14 killed, 130 wounded in operation in Syria's Afrin

[AlAhram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
's health minister said on Friday that 14 Ottoman Turkish soldiers and Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
 (FSA) rebels were killed and another 130 people were maimed following Turkey's incursion into Syria's Afrin region.

Speaking to news hounds after visiting maimed soldiers in hospitals, Ahmet Demircan said three Ottoman Turkish soldiers and 11 fighters from Turkey-backed FSA factions have been killed so far in festivities in northern Syria.

He said 130 people had been brought to Ottoman Turkish hospitals and that 82 of them had been released after receiving treatment. None of the maimed were at death's door, he said, adding that additional medical personnel were sent to the area.

On Saturday, Turkey launched an offensive against the Kurdish YPG militia, which it views as a security threat, in Syria's Afrin, opening a new front in the multi-sided Syrian civil war and further straining ties with its NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure....
 ally Washington.

Dozens of combatants and more than two dozen civilians have been killed so far in the offensive, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britannia-based war monitor, has said.

The Ottoman Turkish military said in a statement on Friday it had killed at least 343 forces of Evil in northernSyria since the operation started.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) however, a YPG-dominated umbrella group backed by the United States in the fight against Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
, has previously said that Turkey was exaggerating the number of the dead.
Posted by: Fred 2018-01-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=506663