ISTANBUL — With airstrikes and artillery fire, Turkey on Saturday defied U.S. appeals and opened a long-anticipated offensive on Afrin, an enclave in Syria for Kurdish militias backed by the United States.
Turkish officials have framed the offensive as part of a wider battle against Kurdish separatists in southwest Turkey, known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Turkey also fears any gains in strength for the Syrian Kurds, whose territory runs along some of Turkey’s southern border.
But the United States has opted to back the Syrian Kurds as proxy fighters against the Islamic State and as a buffer to keep the militants from attempting to reclaim territory.
The military action immediately raised concerns it could spark conflicts between the assortment of foreign military powers present, in proximity, across northern Syria that include Turkey, Russia and the United States. All have the Islamic State as a common foe, but back different factions among the various armed groups in Syria.
The latest flash point also highlighted the shifting disputes and conflicting agendas that have complicated any efforts toward ending nearly seven years of nonstop conflict in Syria. The Turkish military action came amid intensifying violence in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, where Syrian government forces are on the offensive against Al-Qaeda-aligned rebels in the east of the province.
Recent statements by U.S. military officials about plans to train border security forces that would protect a Kurdish enclave in Syria also provoked Turkey’s ire.
“We are taking these steps to ensure our own national security,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, in comments carried by the semiofficial Anadolu agency.
Yet Turkish incursions could carry risks. The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had warned that it was prepared to fire on Turkish warplanes in the event of an attack on Afrin.
[U.S. gives mixed signals on Kurdish force as Turkey escalates pressure]
Bombing raids on towns are now causing one of the worst surges in displacement since Syria’s civil war began. More than 212,000 people have fled fighting around Idlib, a region in northern Syria, in the last month, many of them sleeping in the open as temperatures plunge and rain drenches makeshift campsites, according to the United Nations.
On Saturday, hours after the announcement of the airstrikes, Turkey said it had struck more than 100 positions belonging to the Kurdish fighters. The number of casualties was not immediately clear. The airstrikes followed days of intense Turkish artillery fire on Kurdish positions, according to residents in Afrin.
In a statement, the U.S.-backed Kurdish force, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, warned that the Turkish offensive “threatens to breathe new life into Daesh,” using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State militant group.
The Trump administration, in urging NATO-ally Turkey not to attack, had made a similar argument, saying it would distract from the ongoing battles against Islamic State militants in their remaining strongholds in Syria. There are roughly 2,000 U.S. troops in northern Syria.
Russia, which backs Assad’s government, said it was watching developments “with concern” and called on the warring sides to “exercise mutual restraint.” Russia’s Defense Ministry said that an unspecified number of troops had been moved out of the Afrin area and redeployed.
Much about the Turkish offensive, which the government dubbed “Operation Olive Branch,” remained unclear on Saturday, including whether it would be accompanied by a substantial push by Turkish ground forces and allied rebel factions.
“The challenge is that no one knows what they intend to do,” said Aaron Stein, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.
“Afrin will be hostile to a Turkish backed force patrolling from permanent garrisons. The YPG in the area can retreat to the mountains for protection,” he said, referring to the Syrian Kurdish militia that controls Afrin.
For decades, Turkey has waged bombing attacks and made incursions into northern Iraq against bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has led an insurgency against Turkish forces in southeast Turkey since the 1980s.
Loveluck reported from London. Suzan Haidamous in Beirut, Heba Habib in Stockholm and Anton Troianovski in Moscow contributed to this report.
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