Turkey Begins Ground Assault on Kurdish Enclave in Syria
21, 2018
ISTANBUL — Turkish troops crossed the Syrian border into the Kurdish enclave of Afrin on Sunday morning, beginning a ground assault against American-allied
militias there, as the first accounts of casualties emerged amid rising international criticism of Turkey’s military action.
Mr. Yildirim said Turkish forces would seek to destroy any logistics supply routes to Kurdish units,
but Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said United States officials had assured Turkey there were no American troops in the region.
At the same time, hundreds of Kurdish fighters from the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which has been leading the fight against the Islamic State in Syria, were assembling in towns to the east
and south of Afrin, according to The Associated Press.
Ten people were reported killed in the bombing raids, according to Kurdish militants,
and three people died on the Turkish side of the border in retaliatory shelling, local people said.
Syrian fighters allied with Turkish forces claimed to have seized control of Shankal, a village
on the northwestern edge of the Afrin district, but Kurdish fighters rejected the claim.