BREAKING : TURKEY INVADES SYRIA, GOAL TO ‘DESTROY YPG’

Istanbul, Turkey (AL-SURA MEDIA) – Turkey began it’s operation after over 2 weeks of military preparations. The Turkish military has launched its special forces, regular forces, Turkish-aligned Free Syrian Army rebels and air force towards the Syrian city of Afrin. The main objective is to control the city of Afrin and defeat the ‘Peoples Protection Units’  (YPG)  force currently in the city as it represents a terrorist group for Turkey which has now built a large land holding on it’s borders. The YPG is a group associated with the ‘Kurdistan Workers Party’ (PKK) force in Turkey which has long since used terrorism in the fight against the Turkish state. In Syria the PKK cadres formed a new outfit, dubbed the YPG to defend the predominately Kurdish northern region of Syria from ISIS.

Turkish Air Force has designated 150 targets that are currently being struck for the operation to continue. A shock and awe campaign is expected with Turkish backed Syrian rebels holding the territories after the end of the mission.

The US armed and backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which is predominately filled with YPG fighters has promised to fight Turkey as a result of this invasion and has exchanged artillery fire. However many analysts have mentioned that it is unlikely the SDF is able to stop the Afrin operation due to not being connected to that area by land. The areas the SDF hold and share a border with Turkey on are relatively at peace and the SDF risks bringing conflict to these areas if they use them as a staging ground to attack Turkey. It remains to be seen what the Coalition forces will do in light of this Turkish attack on the SDF.

Turkey has initially mobilized Syrian rebel forces from both within Syria and from Turkey via the border crossing, backed by artillery and Turkish air force strikes on YPG positions. Turkey’s elite special forces are deployed with the rebels and a larger contingent is expected as night falls in Syria. Deployment size for entire Turkish military has not been disclosed and the operation length is expected to be short given the previous military engagement Turkey has had within Syria.

As of 7:30PM, local time in Syria, the YPG forces claim to have successfully stopped a Turkish Army armored formation from entering the ‘Bilbilê district’ of Afrin. The Official Press outlet for the YPG made these claims on their twitter account. Other SDF units have threatened to attack Turkish troops and Turkish backed rebels in Syria are currently skirmishing with them in the outskirts of al-Bab. Turkish artillery and air support has been used throughout this days offensive.