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| Who Are the Pro-Turkey Rebels Advancing on Syria's Afrin |
| 2018-01-23 |
| [AnNahar] Since "Operation Olive Branch" began on Saturday, rebels and An alliance of pro-Ankara rebels is amassing on front lines around Afrin for an expected ground attack. AFP takes a deeper look at those factions and their objectives. - The fronts - Afrin is a hilly enclave that juts out from Syria's northern Aleppo province. ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... holds the borders to the north and west while Syrian rebels control those south and east. Rebels have deployed along a highway east of Afrin between their two strongholds of Azaz and Marea. Other forces, including some fighters from the neighbouring province of Idlib, have gathered south of Afrin. Rebels have also launched a push alongside Ankara had bussed around 600 rebels from northern Syria into - The forces - The They include factions from Euphrates Shield, an operation launched by Ankara in 2016 against the 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 Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group and the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia which Turkey considers as "terrorists". Euphrates Shield brought together a smattering of non-jihadist factions that have received Those forces are fighting side-by-side again in the Afrin assault. Also taking part in "Operation Olive Branch" are fighters from al-Jabha al-Shamiya and Faylaq al-Sham, two rebel alliances operating in northern Syria since 2014. Many of these groups have threatened the YPG or already clashed with them. - The mission - Rebel forces behind the offensive say they are opposed to the YPG and its political branch, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), calling the groups "terrorists" and "separatists". "The operation is to liberate the area from all kinds of terrorism and protect civilians, Arabs and Kurds," said Abdelrahim, who is also Faylaq al-Sham's military chief. "We're not attacking to reach the town of Afrin. The residential buildings are not our aim -- just the military bases and military positions used by the PYD and YPG." But rebels also blamed the YPG for not battling regime forces and have even evoked ethnic divides and accuse them of displacing Arabs. "The goal of the offensive is, in the first phase, to oust the separatist parties from the Arab villages in our areas," said Abu Meslem, a field commander in al-Jabha al-Shamiya. He insisted "Operation Olive Branch" does not aim to push out the entire Syrian Kurdish community. "This is our duty: to oust the separatist parties and bring back the displaced families who have been living in tents during the winter," he told AFP. - The operation - On Sunday, a day into the operation, rebel forces and their The state-run Anadolu news agency said Turkey has mainly provided air cover to the operation, pounding dozens of YPG targets with artillery and air strikes. |
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