Tensions soar in Afrin
Pro-Assad militia arrive in northern Syria to help Kurdish fighters repel Turkish offensive despite Ankara's warnings
Turkey warned yesterday that pro-Damascus forces would face "serious consequences" for entering Syria's Afrin region to help Kurdish fighters repel a Turkish offensive.
Their arrival raises the spectre of wider escalation on Syria's northern battlefront, where the Syrian army, allied Iran-linked militias, Kurdish forces, rebels, Turkish troops, and Russian and American forces are all contending.
The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said Turkish planes bombed a town in Afrin yesterday. Turkey began its assault last month to drive out the YPG, which it deems a security threat along its border akin to the Kurdish PKK insurgency on its own soil.
Paramilitary forces aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Afrin on Tuesday. Turkey and the Syrian insurgents it supports tried to force them back with artillery fire.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman said yesterday the forces in a convoy of some 40-50 vehicles had retreated. "Any step by the (Syrian) regime or other elements in this direction will surely have serious consequences," Ibrahim Kalin told a news conference.
A new confrontation, pitting the Turkish army directly against pro-Assad forces, would further scramble the web of alliances and rivalries already at play in northern Syria.
The forces that arrived - which included combatants allied to Assad but not Syrian army troops - will deploy near the Turkish border, the YPG said.
Before they entered, Erdogan said he had won Russian President Vladimir Putin's backing to block a Syrian government deployment to Afrin.
Turkey and Russia have backed opposing sides during the seven-year war, with Moscow the closest ally of Assad and Ankara one of the main backers of rebels fighting to overthrow him.
But Ankara shifted its Syria policy, seeking to mend broken ties with Russia and turning its efforts towards fighting what it sees as a growing menace from Kurdish forces in Syria.
Russia intervened in Syrian crisis militarily in 2015 and helped Assad's government seize back most major cities from rebels and militants.