New Delhi: Turkey continued its military assault in the Kurdish controlled northeastern Syria, for second day straight. It has been “pounding the region with air raids and artillery fire amid heavy fighting that sent panicked civilians on both sides of the border fleeing,” Al Jazeera reported.
The Syrian Democratic Force (SDF), a Kurdish dominated militia group, controls the Syrian northeast and is trying to respond to the Turkish offensive.
The military offensive
After Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Turkey would be starting a military offensive in Northeastern Syria and his army launched lethal attacks, Wednesday, on the said region.
“Much of Turkey’s ‘intense bombardment’ was concentrated on Tel Abyad, a town right on the other side [of] the frontier that had been without electricity for the last 24 hours,” noted a report in Al Jazeera.
“In response to the Turkish bombardment, a barrage of shells from the Syrian side rained down on Akcakale, where the streets were practically empty,” it added.
Massive humanitarian costs
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, “Tens of thousands of civilians are on the move to escape the fighting and seek safety.”
According to aid agencies working in the region, close to 4,50,000 people living in the five-kilometre radius could be affected by the violence.
The Kurdish Red Crescent, a local humanitarian organisation said that the Turkish attack has led to the death of 10 civilians in the past twenty-four hours. According to videos being circulated on social media, many of the dead and wounded civilians were children.
Why did Turkey attack northeastern Syria?
The Syrian northeast is an autonomous enclave, where the majority population is Kurdish. And this area was manned by the SDF, an alliance of mostly Kurdish and some Arab militias. SDF was created in 2015 to fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The key component of the SDF is People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia group. What has raised the stakes for Turkey is the close alliance between YPG and the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK).
“The YPG has intimate links to the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), an armed group that has pursued a bloody insurgency on Turkish soil since 1984 in the name of greater autonomy for the country’s Kurdish minority,” noted a report in the Financial Times.
The Turkish offensive began after the US President Donald Trump ordered the removal of American forces from the northeastern Syria-Turkey border.
Analysts say that the American forces had been placed there as a deal between SDF and the US. According to the deal, the US forces were supposed to protect the Syrian border and thus, deter an attack by the Turkey.
Turkey’s stated position behind its on-going military offensive is to carve out a safe-zone in northeastern Syria – which would allow Syrian refugees living in Turkey to return to their country.
Though given the contentious relations between Turkey and the Kurdish groups, makes this is a muddled war and at grave humanitarian costs.
Just a while back, turkey was lecturing India on human rights. At the intent here is to not cause loss of life.