MESOPOTAMIA NEWS LATEST TODAY : Turkey bolsters troops in Ankara-controlled areas of Syrian Kurdistan: war monitor

23 Dec 2018 – BEIRUT,— Turkey on Saturday sent military reinforcements to the Ankara-controlled areas of Syrian Kurdistan (northern Syria) near an area controlled by Kurdish forces as Ankara threatens to carry out a fresh offensive to wipe them out, a war monitor said.

The move comes after US President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement on Wednesday of the withdrawal of American troops stationed in northeastern Syria alongside Kurdish fighters, a long-time enemy of Turkey.

Washington has for years supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.

But on Wednesday Trump said he was ordering a withdrawal of the estimated 2,000 US troops in Syria because IS had been defeated, an assessment rubbished by many.

“Around 35 tanks and other heavy weapons, carried aboard tank carriers, crossed the Jarablos border crossing in the early evening,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

“They headed for an area near the Sajour River, between Jarablos and Minbij, not far from the front lines where Kurdish fighters of the Manbij Military Council are stationed,” he added.

Turkish DHA news reported on Sunday that some 100 vehicles including mounted pickup trucks and weaponry had made their way to the border with Syria.

DHA said the Turkish convoy, headed toward the border district of Kilis, located in the southern Kurdish province of Hatay, included tanks, howitzers, machine guns and buses carrying commandos.

Part of the military equipment and personnel are to be positioned in posts along the border while some had crossed into Syria via the district of Elbeyli, DHA said.

Ankara fears the creation of a Kurdish autonomous region or Kurdish state in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) could encourage separatism amongst its own Kurds.

In 2013, the PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013.

On March 17, 2016, Kurdish authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday vowed to drive the Kurdish YPG from Syrian Kurdistan.

The Kurdish community accounts for 15 percent of Syria’s population and controls around 30 percent of the country, as a federal region declared in 2016.

Ankara has previously launched two operations in Syrian Kurdistan.

On August 24, 2016 Turkish troops entered the Syrian territory in a sudden incursion which resulted in the occupation of Jarablus after IS jihadists left the city without resistance. Most of Turkish operations were focused only on Kurdish forces.

In 2016, the Turkish troops entered northern Syria in an area some 100 km east of Afrin to stop the Kurdish YPG forces from extending areas under their control and connecting Syrian Kurdistan’s Kobani and Hasaka in the east with Afrin canton in the west.

Then in January 2018, Turkish military forces backed pro-Ankara Syrian mercenary fighters to clear the YPG from its northwestern enclave of Afrin.

In March 2018, the operation was completed with the capture of the Kurdish city of Afrin.

The flags of Turkey and Syrian rebel groups were raised in the Kurdish Afrin city and a statue of Kurdish hero Kawa, a symbol of resistance against oppressors, was torn down.

Ankara fears the creation of a Kurdish autonomous region or Kurdish state in Syrian Kurdistan could encourage separatism amongst its own Kurds.