Turkish-backed Syrian rebels fight Kurdish forces on the outskirts of the town of Jandairis, on March 8, 2018 in Syria's Afrin region, near the Turkish border

Advertising Read more

Jandairis (Syria) (AFP)

Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels on Thursday took control of the key northern town of Jandairis from Kurdish militia, a monitor said.

"Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels took full control of Jandairis, in the southwest of the Afrin enclave, after heavy and sustained bombardment by Turkish aviation," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring organisation, said the town had suffered extensive destruction.

A local rebel commander from the Turkey-backed Faylaq al-Sham group told an AFP reporter in Jandairis that the town was under full control.

"The entire city of Jandairis was liberated from the secessionist gangs," said the commander, who goes by the name Abu Saleh, adding: "The fight will continue until the whole of Afrin is cleared of them."

© 2018 AFP</s>BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on Syria's civil war (all times local):

The U.N. human rights chief has denounced as "frankly ridiculous" claims by Syria's government that it's doing all it can to protect civilians as its forces lead "indiscriminate, brutal attacks" in eastern Ghouta.

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said Syria's war has entered a "new phase of horror" in Syria — notably in the eastern Ghouta region east of Damascus, rebel-held Idlib province in the northwest, and around northern Afrin, where he said a Turkish offensive is threatening many civilians.

The rights chief, delivering his annual report to the Human Rights Council, was referring Wednesday in part to a Syrian government-led offensive on eastern Ghouta that began Feb. 18.

Shelling killed dozens of people over the last day as President Bashar Assad's government, supported by the Russian military, pressed on with the assault.

Syrian state media says government forces have advanced against rebels in the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus and will try to divide the besieged enclave in two.

SANA news agency says troops are on the outskirts of Misraba, a rebel-held town in the heart of the enclave. The state-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV station on Wednesday broadcast live shots from the region, showing dense columns of smoke rising above the town as rockets could be heard flying overhead.

Russia's military announced Monday it was offering safe passage for rebels and their families out of eastern Ghouta, where some 400,000 people have been trapped under a relentless government campaign of shelling and airstrikes.

A rebel spokesman dismissed the offer on Tuesday, saying it was "psychological warfare."

At least 800 civilians have been killed since Feb. 18, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has urged all parties to abide by a 30-day cease-fire ordered by the Security Council on Feb. 24 to allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians in desperate need.

The Russian military says a general was among 39 people killed in the crash of a Russian military transport plane in Syria.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the An-26 twin-engine turboprop crashed Tuesday while preparing to land at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria, killing all 33 passengers and six crew on board. It later said a general was among those killed, and Russian media identified him as Maj. Gen. Vladimir Yeremeyev.

The ministry said late Tuesday that the plane was flying from the Kweires air base near Aleppo in northern Syria to Hemeimeem, which serves as the main hub for the Russian campaign in Syria. It said the plane did not come under fire and that the crash was likely caused by a technical failure.

Turkey is calling on the United States to prevent U.S.-backed Kurdish forces from sending fighters deployed against the Islamic State group to shore up Kurdish forces battling a Turkish offensive in an enclave in northwest Syria.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman said Wednesday that Turkey wants the United States to "step in and prevent" the redeployment.

A spokesman for Arab militias within the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Tuesday that as many as 1,700 fighters would be redeployed.

Turkey sent troops into the Afrin enclave on Jan. 20 to drive out Syrian Kurdish fighters it considers to be terrorists.

U.S. officials have warned that Turkey's offensive could undermine the fight against the IS.

Erdogan's spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, rejected that, saying the aim was to clear Syria of all terror groups.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>A Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army fighter gestures after Free Syrian Army forces took control of Kafr Jana village, north of Afrin, Syria. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies seized control of the town of Jinderes on Thursday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported, giving them control of one of the largest settlements in Syria’s northwest Afrin region.

The Turkish army and its allies from Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions pushed fighters from the Syrian Kurdish YPG out of the town center on Thursday following intense clashes, it said, adding that operations to secure the area were continuing.

Air raids on the Jinderes town center had intensified after Turkish forces and the FSA captured the hill overlooking it a day earlier, Anadolu said.

Turkey and its allies have so far seized five of the seven urban centers in the Afrin region, it said.

Turkey launched its air and ground assault on Afrin, dubbed Operation Olive Branch, in January to drive out the YPG, which it sees as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency on Turkish soil since 1984. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Turkey’s foreign minister said on Thursday the operation will be completed by May.

On Tuesday, Kurdish-allied Syrian Arab militias said they are redeploying 1,700 fighters from fronts against Islamic State to the Afrin region to help fend off the Turkish offensive.

The United States, which has infuriated Turkey with its support for the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said Turkey’s offensive on Afrin has diverted attention from the fight against Islamic State.</s>BEIRUT (AP) — The latest on the war in Syria (all times local):

The U.N. says Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging all parties in Syria to implement a cease-fire demanded by the Security Council on Feb. 24.

The U.N. chief also is very concerned over attacks throughout the besieged Damascus suburbs of eastern Ghouta as well as reported shelling of the capital.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said late Tuesday that attacks in eastern Ghouta reportedly killed more than 100 people Monday.

Dujarric says 14 of 46 trucks in a convoy trying to deliver supplies to Douma in eastern Ghouta weren't able to fully unload Monday.

He says that "nearly half of the food carried on the convoy" could not be delivered. He also says that "a part of the medical and health supplies to be included for delivery was removed by the Syrian authorities."

Dujarric says Guterres is calling for "safe and unimpeded access" for convoys to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of Syrians in desperate need.

France says the U.N. Security Council will meet Wednesday to discuss the failure to implement its Feb. 24 resolution demanding a cease-fire "without delay" in Syria.

The truce was supposed to last for at least 30 days in order to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid and the evacuation of critically ill and wounded people from besieged areas.

France and Britain requested the closed-door briefings by U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock and U.N. special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

Last Wednesday, Russia and Syria clashed with the U.S. and its Western allies over responsibility for the failure of a cease-fire to take hold in Syria.

Since then, a humanitarian convoy reached the besieged eastern suburbs of Damascus on Monday, but the International Committee for the Red Cross said it was forced to halt the aid delivery after the security situation deteriorated while aid workers were on the ground.

U.S.-backed Kurdish forces say they are redeploying fighters from fronts against the Islamic State group in eastern Syria to the Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin in the northwest to shore up Kurdish fighters battling a Turkish offensive.

The Kurdish Rudaw news agency quotes Abu Omar al-Idilbi, a spokesman for Arab militias within the Syrian Democratic Forces as saying that 1,700 fighters will be redeployed from Deir el-Zour and other active fronts with IS.

An SDF statement says the fighters have made the "difficult decision" to redeploy because of the brutal Turkish offensive on Afrin.

U.S. officials have been warning that Turkey's offensive against U.S.-backed forces in Syria would affect the fight against Islamic State group.

Russia's Defense Ministry has raised the death toll from the crash of a military cargo plane at an air base in Syria to 39.

The ministry said in a statement Tuesday that 33 passengers and six crew members were killed when the An-26 crashed just 500 meters (1,600 feet) from the runway.

The Russian military previously put the death toll at 32.

Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, leases the Hemeimeem military base in Syria, near the Mediterranean coast.

The base is far from the front lines of the conflict, but came under shelling in December. The Russian military insisted the cargo plane did not come under fire, while saying it would conduct a full investigation.

An official with the International Committee for the Red Cross says aid workers who were on a humanitarian mission inside eastern Ghouta saw rescuers trying to pull corpses from the rubble of buildings.

Pawel Krzysiek, head of communications at ICRC Syria, says the situation in the opposition-held Damascus suburb is "desperate."

Speaking on Tuesday, a day after a rare humanitarian mission to eastern Ghouta that was cut short because of the shelling, he says schools have stopped and some children have not seen daylight for 15 days. Many residents are hungry.

"We left with heavy hearts," Krzysiek said in a video distributed by the ICRC.

He appealed for a sustainable solution to the security situation in eastern Ghouta so that more aid could be brought in

Russia says a military cargo plane has crashed at the Russian air base in Syria, killing all 32 people onboard.

The Defense Ministry says the An-26, with 26 passengers and six crew members onboard, crashed Tuesday just 500 meters (1,600 feet) from the runway. The military blamed the crash on a technical error.

Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, leases a military base in Syria near the Mediterranean coast.

U.N. war crimes investigators say a Russian plane was apparently behind a deadly airstrike in November in Syria's Idlib province that killed 84 people at a marketplace, an attack which could amount to a war crime.

The findings were reported by the U.N.'s Commission of Inquiry on Syria on Tuesday.

It's the first time the commission has pinned responsibility for civilian deaths in Syria on Russia. The report says "all available information" indicates a Russian plane carried out the Nov. 13 airstrike that hit a market, surrounding houses and a police station run by Western-backed Syrian rebels in the town of Atarib, in northern Idlib.

At least 84 people were killed and about another 150 were wounded in the attack.

The commission, which was created 6-1/2 years ago to document alleged human rights violations by any side in Syria's war, says the plane that carried out the airstrike took off from an air base in Syria run by Russian forces, the Hemeimeem air base.

A war-monitoring group says Syrian government shelling and airstrikes killed 80 people in the besieged eastern suburbs of Damascus the previous day, making it the deadliest day there since the U.N.'s Security Council last month demanded a cease-fire across Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 80 died and dozens more were wounded on Monday as government forces ignored the U.N. call and pressed their assault on the rebel-held eastern Ghouta.

The United Nations estimates 400,000 people are trapped under a government siege in the area.

The Syrian American Medical Society charity, which supports several hospitals in eastern Ghouta, gave a slightly lesser death toll from the Observatory, saying 79 people were killed.

The Russian defense ministry has extended an offer to Syrians in the besieged eastern suburbs of Damascus, saying armed rebels with their families — not just civilians — can also leave eastern Ghouta through a safe corridor.

The ministry says its negotiators in Syria late on Monday called on all rebels leaders in eastern Ghouta to allow civilians leave the area, which has been under a crippling siege for weeks. It says the rebels are also free to leave the enclave with their weapons and families unhindered.

The first shipment of humanitarian aid reached eastern Ghouta on Monday but was cut short on Tuesday after Syrian government forces began shelling the area again.

Russia has been a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, helping him the tide of the bloody civil war in his favor.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry says the country plans to establish camps in nine locations in northern Syria to house people displaced by fighting amid Ankara's offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said on Tuesday that the camps would be built in a zone controlled by Turkish-backed forces, as well as in Idlib province where Turkish forces are trying establishing a "de-escalation zone" under an agreement reached between Turkey, Russia and Iran.

Aksoy said the camps would host a total of 170,000 people.

Turkey controls a swath of territory revolving around the town of al-Rai, al-Bab and Jarablus — a border zone that Turkey and Turkey-backed rebels took from the Islamic State group in 2016.

Turkey has also launched a campaign to oust a Syrian Kurdish militia from the enclave of Afrin that Ankara considers to be "terrorist" and linked to an insurgency within Turkey's own borders.

The International Committee for the Red Cross says it was forced to halt aid delivery to the besieged eastern suburbs of Damascus the previous day after the security situation deteriorated while aid workers were on the ground.

Ingy Sedky, the ICRC spokeswoman in Syria says most of the aid from a 46-truck convoy was delivered to the town of Douma in eastern Ghouta on Monday but the mission was cut short before the rest of the supplies could be unloaded.

Iyad Abdelaziz, a member of the Douma Local Council, says nine aid trucks had to leave the area after government shelling and airstrikes intensified in the evening.

Monday's shipment was the first to enter eastern Ghouta amid weeks of a crippling siege and a government assault that has killed hundreds.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels are now in control of Jandaris, a town in the Afrin district of northern Syria, the state-run Anadolu news agency says.

Turkey's military alongside Free Syrian Army allies have seized control of the second most populated town in the district from Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters after capturing a hill overlooking the town a day earlier, it said on Thursday.

Jandaris is about 20km away from central Afrin, the last major YPG outpost.

"The entire city of Jandaris was liberated from the secessionist gangs. The fight will continue until the whole of Afrin is cleared of them," an FSA commander who goes by the name of Abu Saleh said.

Speaking in Vienna, Mevlut Cavusoglus, Turkey's foreign minister, said the military operation in Syria against the Syrian Kurdish group should end by May.

Al Jazeera's Allan Fisher, reporting from the Turkish-Syrian border, said fighting could still be under way in Jandaris.

"Despite the bravado, they may not have complete control yet. Sporadic fighting is reported to be continuing in the town," he said.

"The battle for Afrin may not be as quick or straightforward. The Kurds are moving 1,700 fighters across the country away from the battle against ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] on to the front lines of the coming assault."

Turkey has rejected international calls for it to suspend the Afrin assault in line with a UN ceasefire for Syria, which does not apply to ISIL, al-Qaeda and groups associated with it, or others deemed "terrorists" by the UN Security Council.

Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which launched a decades-old fight against Ankara's rule.

YPG has been an important ally to the United States in the fight against ISIL.</s>Out of all major settlements in the region, only the town of Afrin remains under control of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the Daily Sabah newspaper reported.

Meantime, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reported that the Turkish artillery shelling and airstrikes in Syria's Afrin have resulted in 165 civilian victims over six weeks.

"According to the official statistics of the health authorities, 165 civilians were killed, including 28 women and 32 children in Turkish artillery shelling and airstrikes. Moreover, 650 civilians were injured, including 93 women and 87 children," the statement said.

According to the statement, 283 SDF members were killed during the operation.

"A total of 1588 members of terrorist groups and Turkish soldiers were killed… Our forces destroyed 96 armored vehicles belonging to the Turkish invasion army and terrorist groups, including tanks and armored cars," the SDF said.

Turkish troops have lost 42 officers since the operation's beginning, according to the Turkish General Staff.

READ MORE: Turkey Announces Preliminary End Date of Olive Branch Op in Afrin

On January 20, Ankara, jointly with the opposition Free Syrian Army forces, launched Operation Olive Branch in Afrin in order to "clear" Turkey's Syrian border from the terrorist threat. Turkey considers the PYD, a Kurdish political party in northern Syria, as well as the YPG militia, to be linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist organization in Turkey and several other countries. Damascus has condemned the operation as a violation of Syria's sovereignty.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia</s>ISTANBUL - Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies seized control of the town of Jinderes on Thursday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported, giving them control of one of the largest settlements in the northwest Afrin region.



Turkey's armed forces and its allies from Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions pushed the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia forces out of the town center on Thursday after capturing a hill overlooking the town a day earlier, Anadolu said, adding that operations to secure the area were continuing.</s>Kurdish and Arab fighters have abandoned the U.S.-backed fight against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) to help their friends and families repel a Turkish offensive reportedly assisted by Syrian rebels seeking to take revenge on the Kurds.

“We’re preparing to head to Afrin,” Roshavam Qamishlo, a fighter from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) agency on Saturday. The enclave “needs us now more than ever.”

The U.S.-backed SDF, an Arab-Kurdish alliance primarily made up and led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), recently deployed 1,700 mainly Arab fighters to join their Kurdish allies in Afrin as Turkey claimed to have conquered “nearly half” of the region.

YPG fighters are the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which controls swaths of northern Syria and has declared autonomy in that region, something that the Russian and Iranian-backed Assad has indicated he may be open to as long as the Kurds remain part of Syria.

Citing the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors the conflict using a network of sources on the ground, AFP places the number of civilian deaths since the Turkey-led operation in Afrin started on January 20 at more than 170.

Meanwhile, the state-owned Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) claims Turkish troops and their allies have killed or wounded “up to 900 civilians.”

The Turkish military claims to have “neutralized” an estimated “3,055 People’s Protection Units (YPG)” in the ongoing operation in northern Syria’s Afrin region.

Turkey has called its NATO ally, the United States, to prevent fighters from the U.S.-allied YPG from moving into Afrin, Reuters learned from a spokesman for the Turkish president.

However, while the United States maintains it has no “direct relationship” with the YPG in Afrin, it has not stopped it from assisting its friend and families fighting against Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies, which include the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which has received American taxpayer-funded assistance in the past.

The United States has urged Turkey to halt its offensive in Afrin, noting that it is having a negative impact on the fight against ISIS.

Some experts, including former U.S. Amb. Ryan Crocker, have warned that America’s reluctance to assist the Kurds in Afrin will drive them to join the Iran, Russia, Syria coalition.

Turkey has long considered the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which both Washington and Ankara deem a terrorist organization.

However, the United States has continued to assist the YPG, which various American officials have described as an effective partner against ISIS.

Some Syrian rebels have joined Turkey’s side to take revenge on the Kurds, reports the Washington Post (WaPo), noting:

Syrian rebels who have joined Turkey’s cross-border offensive against a Kurdish enclave say they see the assault as a way to settle personal scores, and reports are mounting of looting and summary executions carried out by the Syrian fighters. Backed by Turkish troops and warplanes, thousands of Syrian rebels are now tightening their grip on the Kurdish-controlled Afrin enclave in northern Syria as part of an offensive that Turkey has framed as a matter of its national security.

At home, Turkey has been fighting against Kurds closely allied with the YPG for decades.

Since the civil war began in Syria in 2011, Assad troops and their Iranian and Russian allies have been fighting Turkey-assisted rebels, whom the dictator considers terrorists.

Now, the Turks and their Syrian rebel allies are facing off against the Kurds, their Arab partners, and pro-Assad fighters.

Citing various media reports, Breitbart News reported last month that “hundreds” of Iranian-allied Shiite troops loyal to Assad had joined the U.S.-allied YPG and their partners in Afrin to repel the Turkish offensive.

That first armed confrontation between the [Turkish Armed Forces] TSK and pro-Assad militias in northern Syria is cause for serious concern, especially for Moscow, because if the fight escalates to clashes between TSK and Assad’s army — rather than just supporting militias — it could mean the collapse of de-escalation efforts west of the Euphrates. Moscow’s vision for northern Syria is clear. On one side of the negotiation table, Assad will sit as the big brother under Russian wings with the Democratic Union Party [PYD] as the younger brother representing the Syrian Kurds, who must be pro-Russia, staunchly secular and leftist. On the other side of the table facing them will be the Syrian opposition, under the tutelage and control of Ankara.

Although Turkey supports anti-Assad rebels, tensions with the United States have driven Ankara closer to Moscow.</s>Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters fire an anti-aircraft gun during battles with Kurdish fighters on the outskirts of the town of Jandairis, in the region of Afrin, near the Turkish border on Wednesday (AFP photo)

QAMISHLI, Syria — Hundreds of kilometres away from family and friends, facing an attack by Turkey, Kurdish and Arab forces deployed in the eastern Syrian Desert against extremists have become increasingly frustrated.

Six weeks into the Turkey-led assault on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, young men and women are leaving the fight against the Daesh group in droves, heading west to help.

Kurdish militia have formed the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance that has successfully expelled Daesh from much of Syria with the backing of a US-led military coalition.

But as news of the battle in Afrin reaches them, the fighters have become reluctant to hunt down extremists in their last hideouts in Deir Ezzor province.

“We’re preparing to head to Afrin,” SDF fighter Roshavam Qamishlo told AFP on Saturday. The enclave “needs us now more than ever”.

He spoke at the funeral of three comrades-in-arms in the northeastern town of Qamishli, where dozens came to pay their respects to those killed in Deir Ezzor.

“They should have died in Afrin,” he said, as their coffins were displayed in the middle of the crowd, draped in the Kurdish colours of yellow, red and green.

Arab fighters, too, have opted to ditch battlefronts against Daesh to shore up lines of defence in Afrin.

On Tuesday, SDF commander Abu Omar Al Idlibi said 1,700 of his fighters — mostly Arabs from northern Syria whose families had sought refuge in Afrin — would be sent to defend the enclave in the coming week.

Afrin, which is controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, is one of three regions Syria’s Kurds hope will be part of a self-ruled federal region in the country’s north.

Turkey sees the YPG as a “terrorist” group and has bombarded the region with air strikes and artillery fire since January 20.

More than 170 civilians have died in the assault, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

Ankara, however, denies the claim and says it takes the “utmost care” to avoid civilian casualties.

The offensive has prompted a call-to-arms for the YPG and SDF, and one senior SDF official said that “hundreds of fighters from Afrin and who have relatives there have returned to defend” their people.

As a result, the US-led coalition declared an “operational pause” to its anti-Daesh fight in eastern Syria on Monday.

US and coalition officials have said they will not get involved in the Afrin fighting, and expressed concern it would detract from the SDF’s operations against Daesh.

In addition to reinforcements from Daesh battlefronts, other fighters have streamed into Afrin from Qamishli, Hasakeh in the northeast and Kobane further west, says Rezan Hedo, an adviser to the YPG in Afrin.

Others even travelled from the Kurdish neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsud in the northern city of Aleppo, Hedo tells AFP.

In Qamishli, another fighter, who gave his nom de guerre as Nushin Qamishlo, said he would also join the fight on the Turkish border.

“We all want to go,” said the 25-year-old, who sported a thick beard and whose head was wrapped in a bright blue scarf.

“We’re highly capable and will take on the Turks even without the coalition’s help.”

Fighter Al Ashqar Nuseen feared that losing Afrin could be a huge blow to his long-awaited dreams of a federal Syrian Kurdish region.

“We will defend Afrin with all our might, taking on the Turks like we did Daesh,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for Daesh.

Ali Omar, 65, a Syrian Kurdish bystander at the funeral in Qamishli, said he supported the Kurdish fighters withdrawing from Deir Ezzor.

“When it’s our interests, our people, our villages and our towns that are threatened, we’re forced to leave everything and head to defend our homeland,” he said.

But he questioned why the US-led coalition, which the Kurds have aided in its fight against Daesh in Syria, had not intervened to help the Kurds in Afrin.

“Why are we helping you in Deir Ezzor and other places, and you don’t help us in Afrin?”

Without help from any outside power, Syria’s Kurds have found themselves in the awkward position of having to ask for support from the Damascus regime.

Since last month, pro-regime fighters have been deployed alongside Kurdish fighters in Afrin on several fronts.

Abdel Salam Ahmad, a high-ranking official of the Kurdish Democratic that Society Movement, said Syria’s Kurds have lost faith in the international community.

“This region will not find stability until a fair solution is found for the Kurdish people,” he said.</s>Kurdish fighters form the bulk of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against Islamic State jihadists (AFP Photo/DELIL SOULEIMAN)

Raqa (Syria) (AFP) - A US-backed alliance of Syrian fighters announced on Tuesday it would redeploy around 1,700 members from front lines against the Islamic State group to a Kurdish enclave under Turkish attack.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebels are waging a weeks-long offensive on Afrin, which is held by a Kurdish militia that makes up the bulk of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

At a news conference on Tuesday, the SDF announced it would pull fighters out of areas of eastern Syria, where they have been fighting pockets of IS jihadists, in order to shore up defences in Afrin.

"We took the difficult decision to pull our forces out of Deir Ezzor province and battlefronts against Daesh (IS) to head to the Afrin battle," said Abu Omar al-Idlibi, an SDF commander, saying his fighters numbered 1,700.

Idlibi spoke to AFP in the football stadium in Raqa, which the SDF recaptured from IS in October with help from the US-led international coalition.

US and coalition officials have said they will not get involved in the Afrin fighting and expressed concern it would detract from the SDF's operations against IS.

"We fought Daesh. We helped the coalition in Raqa, but without the coalition defending its partners," Idlibi said.

"Our people in Afrin are our priority. Protecting them is more important than the international coalition's decisions."

He said his units, mostly made up of Syrian Arabs from the north of the country, were to be redeployed in the coming week.

Ankara and allied Syrian rebels launched their offensive against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin on January 20.

They have since captured 40 percent of the enclave, including a strip along the border with Turkey, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said on Tuesday.

SDF commander Sevger Himo told AFP: "These forces leaving will affect the war against Daesh" even if fighting will continue on the Deir Ezzor front.

Kurdish men and women fighters had grown increasingly reluctant to fight IS in recent weeks, as fellow Syrian Kurds came under attack in Afrin.

The Pentagon said on Monday that Kurdish fighters had left the Deir Ezzor front, leading to an "operational pause" in their offensive against IS.

An SDF commander earlier told AFP that hundreds of fighters from Afrin had returned to defend their relatives.

The Observatory says more than 170 civilians have been killed since January 20.

Turkey denies the reports and says it takes the "utmost care" to avoid civilian casualties.

The monitor says 300 pro-Ankara rebels and nearly 320 Kurdish fighters have also lost their lives.

Since pro-regime fighters were deployed to help the Kurds in Afrin last month, some 58 of these "popular forces" have been killed, it said.

Turkey has announced a death toll of at least 40 Turkish soldiers since the start of the assault.

Ankara says the YPG is a "terrorist" extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

Syria's war has killed more than 340,000 people and spiralled into a complex conflict involving world powers since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army seizes control of Jindires in Syria's Afrin District from the Kurdish YPG. The town is extensively destroyed by Turkish airstrikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.