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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Turkey takes full control of Syria's Afrin: Military source
2018-03-25
[AlAhram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund....
's military and its Syrian rebel allies have taken full control of northwest Syria's Afrin region, a Ottoman Turkish army source said on Saturday, as aid workers distributed food to people in the area.

Ottoman Turkish forces and the Syrian fighters swept into the main Afrin town last Sunday after an eight-week campaign to drive out the Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara regards as a terrorist group.

A military source told Rooters the last remaining villages had been seized and control established overnight.

"Control has been completely achieved in the Afrin region and search operations are continuing so that local people can return safely to their houses," the source said.

State-run Anadolu news agency carried a similar report.

In Afrin, people queued to receive hot food which was being distributed by the Ottoman Turkish Red Islamic Thingy while Ottoman Turkish soldiers kept security and armoured vehicles moved along the streets.

"We are trying to bring back life to normal in the short and medium term here." the aid group's president Kerem Kinik told Rooters. "Our mobile kitchens are here, and our crews are in the villages."

"We want everything to be alright. We want our women and kiddies to come back. They could not come back to their homeland," said Afrin resident Abdurrahman Nahsen Suleymanoglu.

Ottoman Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan rejected criticism of the Afrin campaign in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, according to a Ottoman Turkish presidential source.

Among Turkey's Western allies, La Belle France has been one of the biggest critics of the Ottoman Turkish military operation, with its foreign minister saying concerns for its border security did not justify the incursion.
Posted by:trailing wife

#3  the Kurdish fighters somehow could not buy much in the way of surface to air missiles and consequently the Turkish AF did a number on both them and the civilian population
Posted by: lord garth   2018-03-25 22:01  

#2  I don't think it's about being overblown, they do fine for the most part. I just think Turkey hit them with enough air-power to collapse the front. It's the one area the YPG appear lacking a counter in. For the moment anyway.
Posted by: Charles   2018-03-25 07:04  

#1  I think Tom Kratman was the first to point out that Kurds' military reputation is way overblown.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-03-25 02:01  

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