Politics

Turkish offensive in Afrin affects Coalition’s anti-IS operations: Spokesperson

The US-led coalition is limiting its military operations against the Islamic State in eastern Syria as many Kurdish leaders within the SDF have left the area to battle the Turkish forces in Afrin.

Sangar Ali 2018/03/23 07:25

kurdistan Turkey Syria SDF Afrin

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – The US-led coalition is limiting its military operations against the Islamic State (IS) in eastern Syria as many Kurdish leaders within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have left the area to battle the Turkish forces in Afrin, the coalition spokesperson revealed on Thursday.

“Clearly, with the amount of fighters that have left — the SDF had announced 1,700 [fighters] — a lot of those are, and I’ll be very blunt about this as well, the majority of the leadership of these elements are Kurdish. So a lot of the leaders of these elements in the Middle Euphrates River Valley have departed,” Operation Inherent Resolve spokesperson Col. Ryan Dillon told Sputnik. “We’ve been limited now in our ability to conduct intensive operations and really put the pressure” on IS.

He mentioned that although most SDF fighters have remained in the area to continue battling the jihadist group, the loss of SDF leaders has affected military capabilities.

“Things have slowed down because of the operations that happened in Afrin,” he said.

The US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) made up over 60 percent of the SDF fighting force, but according to Dillon, it is no longer the case.

He mentioned that most new SDF recruits are now Arab, which has turned the Kurds into a minority group within the armed force.

On Jan. 20, Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), launched a joint military operation to capture the Kurdish enclave of Afrin located in northwestern Syria.

According to SDF, over 1,700 fighters have left eastern Syria to fight the Turkish forces and their Islamist allies in Afrin.

Ankara views the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its military wings, the YPG and YPJ, as a ‘terrorist’ group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group fighting a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish government in Turkey.

Editing by Nadia Riva