After Victory in Afrin, Turkey Threatens to Push Further East

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to expand operations against Kurdish forces in Syria on Monday, the Associated Press reported.

His comments come one day after Turkish troops and allied rebels seized the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria from the Kurdish YPG militia, following weeks of fierce clashes between the rival groups.

The emboldened Turkish president on Monday vowed to push into other Kurdish-held regions further east, including the towns of Kobani, Qamishli and Manbij, where U.S.-backed forces operate alongside allied Kurdish forces.

Erdogan also threatened to attack Iraq’s Sinjar mountains, which are used by Kurdish groups to move between Syria and Iraq.

Turkish troops have been battling Kurdish forces in Syria since Ankara launched “Operation Olive Branch” in January.

An expansion of the campaign, which has so far focused only on the enclave of Afrin, could drag Ankara into direct confrontation with U.S. forces and their main Kurdish partners in Syria – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Attack on Eastern Ghouta School Kills More Than a Dozen Children

At least 17 people were killed in government airstrikes on a school in Eastern Ghouta on Monday, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

They include 15 children and two women who were using a school basement in the town of Arbin as a shelter from fierce government bombardment. The SOHR claims that Russian warplanes were behind the attack.

Another 20 people were killed in separate government attacks on the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma. At least 13 were killed in airstrikes and artillery attacks on the area on late Sunday, while seven more people were killed on Monday morning, AFP said, citing the SOHR.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in government attacks on Eastern Ghouta since Damascus launched an operation to reclaim the area on February 18. More than 80 percent of the area has fallen under government control since the campaign started, AFP said.

Meanwhile, the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights on Monday criticized the Syrian government’s “current relentless, month-long bombardment of hundreds of thousands of terrified trapped civilians” in Eastern Ghouta.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein also said that the Syrian government’s five-year-long siege on Eastern Ghouta has involved “pervasive war crimes, the use of chemical weaponry, enforced starvation as a weapon of warfare and the denial of essential and life-saving aid,” according to the AP.

ISIS Kills More Than Two Dozen Pro-Government Fighters Near Capital

At least 36 pro-government fighters were killed in clashes with the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in southern Damascus, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Several others were either injured or captured by militants in ongoing fighting in al-Qadam district, located near the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in the southern suburbs of the capital.

The clashes come after ISIS militants drove out pro-government forces from parts of the neighborhood that rebels abandoned last week as part of an evacuation deal with the Syrian government.

ISIS militants, who held a separate part of the district, are now fighting to clear the entire neighborhood from pro-government forces who had entered al-Qadam after rebels retreated to northern Syria.

Recommended Reads

• Reuters: After The Battle: Aid, Gunfire and Looting in Syria’s Afrin
• The Associated Press: AP Explains: What’s Next After Turkey Seizes Syria’s Afrin
• Agence France-Presse: Kawa the Blacksmith: Kurdish Symbol of Resistance
• The Washington Post: A Defeat for Syrian Kurds Is Another Blow for U.S. Policy
• The New York Times: Driving With Assad: Syria’s President Tours a Destroyed Suburb