Fierce Fighting Rages Around Kurdish Enclave

Turkish troops and allied rebels escalated their attacks on a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria on Monday as they pressed on with a campaign to clear the region of the YPG Kurdish militia, the Associated Press reported.

Monday marked the third day of Ankara’s campaign against the district of Afrin in northern Aleppo province. The operation aims to create a safe zone 20 miles (30km) deep in the YPG stronghold.

Fierce fighting broke out on two fronts as Turkey-backed forces tried to breach Afrin, one day after their advances were reportedly repelled by YPG forces, the AP said. Citing the YPG, the AP said that Turkish troops and allied opposition fighters were now trying to enter Afrin from the north, as YPG forces worked to block their advances.

The Turkish military on Monday announced its first fatality since the operation started on Saturday, the AP said.

Meanwhile, more than 20 civilians have been killed in clashes in and around Afrin since the start of the operation, the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Monday.

SOHR director Rami Abdulrahman told Agence France-Presse that Monday’s clashes were the fiercest since the start of the offensive.

A NATO statement released Monday acknowledged Turkey’s right to self-defense but urged Ankara to act in a “proportionate and measured way,” the AP reported.

U.S. secretary of state Rex Tillerson on Monday also said that the U.S. recognized Ankara’s “legitimate right” to defend itself from terrorists, but urged Ankara to be precise in its campaign and limit its offensive by showing restraint.

Tillerson said that Washington has proposed it could assist in setting up a security zone on the Syrian border to help stabilize the situation in Afrin and address Turkey’s security concerns.

But Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday vowed to expand his country’s offensive further east to the Kurdish-held town of Manbij, the AP said. He also said that Turkey would not step back from the Afrin operation, adding that Ankara had reached an agreement with Russia over the offensive.

Syrian Government Accused of Launching Chemical Attack on Damascus Suburbs

The Syrian government reportedly launched a chemical weapons attack on the besieged Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, Agence France-Presse reported.

“After regime forces fired rockets into the western part of the city of Douma, white smoke spread, causing 21 cases of suffocation,” the SOHR said.

“Residents and medical sources talk of chlorine gas,” SOHR director Rami Abdulrahman told AFP, clarifying that the SOHR could not independently verify these reports.

A doctor in a hospital in Douma where some of the victims of the attack were being treated told AFP that patients suffered from “respiratory irritation, breathing difficulties, coughing and reddening of the eyes.”

“We noticed that they smelled like bleach, or chlorine, and we stripped them of their clothes,” he said.

The health directorate for rebel-held areas in the Damascus suburbs said that the symptoms displayed by patients “suggest they have been exposed to chlorine gas inhalation,” Reuters reported.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chlorine gas or other chemical weapons during the conflict.

Senior USAID Official Visits Raqqa

The administrator of the United States’ aid agency made a surprise visit to Raqqa on Monday as Washington ramps up stabilization efforts in areas it has liberated from the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), Reuters reported.

USAID’s Mark Green is the most senior U.S. civilian official from the Trump administration to visit the northern city after Washington-backed forces liberated it from ISIS militants last year.

“We’re at the point where people really do want to go home so this is the moment to seize,” he told Reuters in a phone interview.

“The mission for us is stabilization not reconstruction,” Green emphasized. “Our part of it is restoring essential services and there is a lot of work to do,” he added.

Green’s visit comes less than a week after U.S. secretary of state Rex Tillerson suggested that U.S. forces will stay in Syria indefinitely to prevent an ISIS resurgence and to challenge growing Iranian influence in the country.

Recommended Reads

• The Guardian: Turkey’s Preoccupation With Syrian Kurds Could Spell Disaster for U.S.
• Agence France-Presse: Reasons, Risks and Consequences of Turkey’s Syria Operation
• The Associated Press: AP Explains: Turkey’s ‘Operation Olive Branch’ in Afrin
• The New York Times: As Turkey Attacks Kurds in Syria, U.S. Is on the Sideline
• The Associated Press: In Syria’s Aleppo, Old Bazaar Struggles to Come Back to Life