KOCABEYLI, Turkey -- Turkish jets bombed the Kurdish-controlled city of Afrin in northern Syria on Saturday, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to expand Turkey's military border operations against a Kurdish group that has been the U.S.'s key Syria ally in the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The raids came on the heels of a week of sharp threats by the Turkish government, promising to clear the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, from Afrin and its surrounding countryside, also called Afrin. Turkey's military is calling the campaign Operation Olive Branch.

Turkey says the YPG -- a group it considers a terrorist organization -- is an extension of an outlawed Kurdish rebel group that it is fighting inside its own borders, and it has found common cause with Syrian opposition groups who view the YPG as a counter-revolutionary force in Syria's multi-sided civil war.

Associated Press journalists at the Turkish border saw jets bombing positions in the direction of Afrin, as a convoy of armed pick-up trucks and buses believed to be carrying Syrian opposition fighters traveled along the border. Video from Turkey this week showed the military moving tanks to the frontier.

Rojhat Roj, a YPG spokesman, confirmed the strikes, saying they were the first by the Turkish military on the city. He said ten civilians were wounded, three seriously.

The Russian Defense Ministry said, meanwhile, that it was pulling back troops that had been deployed near Afrin, two days after Turkey's military and intelligence briefs travelled to Moscow to discuss the planned operation. It said the group of observers was being relocated to another area. It was not immediately clear how many troops were affected by the move.

The YPG is the driving force behind a coalition of north Syrian forces allied with the U.S. to battle the Islamic State group. With U.S. support, including around 2,000 embedded forces, the coalition now controls close to a quarter of Syrian territory, concentrated mostly to the north and east of the Euphrates River.

Turkish leaders were infuriated by an announcement by the U.S. military six days ago that it was going to create a 30,000-strong border force with the Kurdish fighters to secure northern Syria. Days later, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the U.S. would maintain a military presence with the Kurds for the foreseeable future.

Speaking in the city of Kutahya in western Turkey, Erdogan announced an expansion to Turkish operations in Syria, promising to move on the Kurdish-controlled town of Manbij and its surrounding countryside after completing operations in Afrin. The operation would force out the Kurdish militia from all positions west of the Euphrates River.

In 2016, Turkey trained and equipped opposition forces to drive Kurdish fighters out of parts of north Syria, driving a wedge between two enclaves along the Turkish frontier. Turkish ground forces, including tanks and artillery, crossed into Syria with the fighters to establish a zone flanked by Afrin and Manbij that now serves as hub for Turkish operations inside the war-torn country.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the strikes on Afrin marked the start of a campaign to "eliminate the PYD and PKK and Daesh elements in Afrin," referring to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party and the Kurdistan Worker's Party respectively, and using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. The PYD, PKK, and YPG all look to the Kurdish Marxist-nationalist leader Abdullah Öcalan as their guide. Öcalan is imprisoned by Turkey for waging a separatist movement in the eastern part of the country.

The air strikes were accompanied by waves of artillery strikes on the Afrin region.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed the operation with Tillerson by phone on Sunday after the U.S. diplomat requested a conversation, Turkish officials said. They did not provide further details.

Any ground operation would entail considerable military and political risk for Ankara. Russia was keeping military observers in Afrin and lately firmed up its ties with the YPG, while Syria's government in Damascus said it would shoot down any Turkish jets on raids in the country. The YPG is estimated to have between 8,000 and 10,000 fighters in Afrin.

Turkey could also face blowback from the Kurdish insurgency within its own borders.

A ground offensive or continued shelling would exacerbate the poor humanitarian situation in Afrin, which is now home to at least 800,000 civilians, including many who arrived fleeing the fighting in other parts of Syria.

Also on Saturday, Syrian government forces and supporting militias retook a key air base in northwest Syria lost to rebels in 2015. Syria's state broadcaster said Syrian troops fought their way into the strategic Abu Zuhour air base on Saturday, in Idlib province.

It was a coup for the government and allied militias who advanced swiftly to take the base in what was considered a stronghold for rebels and al-Qaida insurgents.

But the advance, which began in earnest in late December, has displaced more than 200,000 civilians, according to the U.N., exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation in the north of the country.</s>KOCABEYLI, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's state media: Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters have started entering Kurdish enclave of Afrin in Syria.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>HASSA, Turkey/BEIRUT Jan 20 (Reuters) - Turkey opened a new front in Syria's nearly seven-year-old war on Saturday, launching airstrikes against a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Afrin province that raise the prospect of a further strain on relations between Ankara and Washington.

The operation, dubbed "Operation Olive Branch" by Ankara, pits Turkey against Kurdish fighters allied to the United States at a time when ties between Turkey and Washington - NATO allies and members of the coalition against Islamic State - appear dangerously close to a breaking point.

The strikes on the Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia hit some 108 targets, the Turkish military said. On land, the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army rebels were also helping the operation in Afrin, a senior Turkish official said.

"The weakening of the region with artillery fire is under way. The first stage was carried out by aerial forces of the military and nearly all of the targets were destroyed," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

From Sunday land forces would also carry out "necessary activities", depending on developments, he said.

The YPG said the strikes killed six civilians and three fighters. One of the fighters belonged to the YPG and two were from its all-female affiliate, YPG spokesman Birusk Hasaka said. The attacks also wounded 13 civilians, he said.

"We will defeat this aggression, like we have defeated other such assaults," the group said in a statement.

Differences over Syria policy have complicated Turkey's already difficult relationship with NATO ally the United States, which has backed the YPG, seeing it as an effective partner in the fight against Islamic State.

On Saturday, U.S. reaction to the strikes was cautious.

The Pentagon said the United States urged those involved to focus instead on the fight against Islamic State. A Pentagon official said: "We encourage all parties to avoid escalation and to focus on the most important task of defeating ISIS."

A U.S. State Department official said U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had spoken to the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers, but gave no details on the calls.

Reuters cameramen in Hassa, near the Syria border, heard the sound of heavy bombardment and saw thick plumes of smoke rising from the Syrian side of the border. The warplanes appeared to be striking from the Turkish side, one of the cameramen said.

Tanks and buses filled with Turkish soldiers and pick-up trucks carrying members of the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army made their way along a 15-km (nine mile) highway in Turkey towards the border, the cameraman said.

Villages in nearby towns came out to cheer them on, waving Turkish flags. "The best soldiers are our soldiers," some of the villagers shouted in support.

Warplanes pounded parts of Afrin city and villages nearby, while there were skirmishes with Turkish forces and their rebel allies at the edge of Afrin, a YPG official in the area said.

Authorities in the Afrin region say more than a million people live there, many displaced from other parts of Syria.

"Most of the wounded are civilians," said Hevi Mustafa, a top member of the civilian administration that governs Afrin. "There are clashes. There's artillery and shelling. Our units are fiercely responding to this occupation."

The attacks follow weeks of warnings against the YPG in Syria from President Tayyip Erdogan and his ministers. Turkey considers the YPG to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a deadly, three-decade insurgency in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.

Turkey has been particularly outraged by an announcement that the United States planned to train 30,000 personnel in parts of northeast Syria under the control of the YPG-spearheaded Syrian Democratic Forces.

"In a situation like this our expectations from everyone and especially from our allies is that they side with us, not with terrorists," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, appearing to refer to Washington.

The attacks could also complicate Turkey's push to improve its relationship with Russia. Moscow, the main backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, will demand in the United Nations that Turkey halt the operation, RIA news reported.

The Syrian government, which has threatened to shoot down Turkish planes, condemned the strikes. It called the attacks "brutal Turkish aggression on Afrin which is an intrinsic part of Syrian land", according to state media.

The YPG's growing strength across large parts of northern Syria has alarmed Ankara, which fears the creation of an independent Kurdish state on its southern border. Syrian Kurdish leaders say they seek autonomy as part of Syria, not secession.

Turkish officials have said the operation is likely to continue toward Manbij, further east. They also said that thousands of pro-Turkey civilians had escaped the YPG-controlled areas in an attempt to reach Aleppo.

But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K-based monitoring organisation, said it was not true that people were fleeing en masse.

The Pentagon spokesman said the United States recognised Turkey's security concerns about the PKK, noting it was designed by Washington as a foreign terrorist organisation.

"We will destroy the terror corridor gradually as we did in Jarabulus and Al-Bab operations, starting from the west," Turkey's Erdogan said, referring to previous operations in Syria to push out Islamic State and check the YPG's advance.

Earlier on Saturday, the military said it hit shelters and hideouts used by the YPG and other Kurdish fighters, saying Kurdish militants had fired on Turkish positions inside Turkey.

But the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces - which the YPG spearheads - accused Turkey of using cross-border shelling as a false pretext to launch its offensive in Syria. (Additional reporting by Osman Orsal in Hassa; Orhan Coskun, Tulay Karadeniz, Gulsen Solaker and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Omer Berberoglu, Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; David Brunnstrom and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by David Dolan, Editing by William Maclean)</s>Turkey’s prime minister Binali Yildirim said “As of this moment our brave Armed Forces have started the aerial offensive to eliminate the PYD and PKK and [Islamic State] elements in Afrin,” adding that eight F-16 aircraft were involved in the aerial sortie.

State media reported that Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters have also entered the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria.

RT reports: Turkey’s General Staff has officially declared the start of the operation, dubbing it ‘Operation Olive Branch,’ according to a statement cited by Turkish newspaper Sol.

AP journalists at the Turkish border reported seeing at least five jets heading toward Afrin. Also sighted was a convoy of buses, believed to be carrying Syrian opposition fighters, and trucks mounted with machine guns.

A senior Kurdish official said that Turkish warplanes had struck residential parts of Afrin, forcing people to retreat inside their homes and in shelters, Reuters reported. Several wounded people arrived at a local hospital, according to Hevi Mustafa, a top member of the civilian administration that governs the area.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has discussed the military offensive with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Turkish officials said. Ministry officials earlier said Tillerson had requested a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart. Ankara’s Chief of Military Staff, Hulusi Akar, has also spoken with his US and Russian counterparts, according to Turkish media reports.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have meanwhile accused Turkey of using cross-border shelling as a false pretext to launch an offensive into Syria, according to Reuters. The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), said it will have no choice but to defend itself if attacked. The alliance controls areas in Syria’s east and north.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow is closely following the situation, citing concerns over recent developments in the area. The ministry’s statement called on all sides in the conflict to exercise restraint.

It comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier on Saturday that Ankara had “de facto” begun its operation against Kurdish forces in Afrin. He said the operation would be “followed by Manbij,” referring to the Kurdish-controlled town in northern Syria.</s>The Turkish army said it launched new strikes Saturday against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in northern Syria, amid mounting expectations of a cross-border ground operation.

The army said it hit in “legitimate self defence” camps and refuges used by the YPG in response to fire coming from the Afrin region controlled by the militia group, which Turkey deems to be a terror organisation.

Similar strikes had also taken place on Friday, it confirmed.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly threatened over the last days to launch a ground operation, also including pro-Ankara Syrian rebels, to oust the YPG from Afrin and the area.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has waged a rebellion in the Turkish southeast for more than three decades and is regarded as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

But the YPG has been the key ally of Turkey’s fellow NATO member the United States in the fight against Islamic State jihadists, playing a key role in pushing the extremists out of their Syrian strongholds.

Turkish Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli said Friday that the operation had “de-facto begun” because of the shelling but confirmed that Turkish troops had not yet crossed over into Syria.

Analysts say that crucial for any major ground operation will be approval from Moscow which has a military presence in the area and a cordial relationship with the YPG.

Turkey’s army chief General Hulusi Akar and spy chief Hakan Fidan were in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian counterparts on Syria.</s>ISTANBUL - Turkey's army said it shelled Kurdish positions in Syria's Afrin region on Friday and Saturday, hitting shelters and hideouts used by militants from three groups, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), PYD and YPG.



The militants had earlier fired on Turkish positions, the army said in a statement.



President Tayyip Erdogan said this week he would crush the Syrian Kurdish militia in Afrin, which he viewed as a security threat to Turkey.



Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said on Friday that Turkey's operation in the region had started with cross-border shelling, but no troops have gone into Afrin.</s>BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian government condemned Turkish air strikes against the Afrin region on Saturday and said Ankara had not informed it of the military operation, state media said.

Damascus “strongly condemns this brutal Turkish aggression on Afrin which is an intrinsic part of Syrian land,” state media cited an official source in the foreign ministry as saying.

Turkey opened a new front in Syria’s war on Saturday, striking Kurdish-held Afrin and raising the prospect of deeper strains between Ankara and NATO ally Washington.</s>ISTANBUL: Turkey's army said it shelled Kurdish positions in Syria's Afrin region on Friday and Saturday, hitting shelters and hideouts used by militants from three groups, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), PYD and YPG.

The militants had earlier fired on Turkish positions, the army said in a statement.

President Tayyip Erdogan said this week he would crush the Syrian Kurdish militia in Afrin, which he viewed as a security threat to Turkey.

Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli said on Friday that Turkey's operation in the region had started with cross-border shelling, but no troops have gone into Afrin.</s>HASSA, Turkey/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Turkey opened a new front in Syria’s war on Saturday, launching airstrikes against a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Afrin province that raise the prospect of worsening relations between Ankara and NATO ally Washington.

The operation, which the Turks dubbed “Operation Olive Branch”, sees Ankara confronting Kurdish fighters allied to the United States at a time when ties between Turkey and Washington - both members of the coalition against Islamic State - appear dangerously close to a breaking point.

The attacks could also complicate Turkey’s push to improve its relationship with Russia. Moscow will demand in the United Nations that Turkey halt the operation, RIA news reported, citing a member of the Russian parliament’s security committee.

The Syrian government condemned what it called Turkish aggression and said Afrin was an intrinsic part of Syrian land.

“We are carrying out this operation from land and air,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told broadcaster NTV. He said the attacks were being carried out to target the Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia and that no civilians had been hurt.

“In a situation like this our expectations from everyone and especially from our allies is that they side with us, not with terrorists,” he said, appearing to refer to Washington.

Some 108 targests had been hit in airstrikes, the Turkish military said. A Turkey-backed rebel group in Syria, the Free Syrian Army, was also providing assistance to the operation in Afrin, a senior Turkish official said.

The YPG said the attacks left it with no choice but to fight back, saying Ankara had hit civilian neighbourhoods and a number of people had been wounded.

“We will defeat this aggression, like we have defeated other such assaults against our villages and cities,” the YPG said.

Rojhat Roj, a YPG media official in Afrin, said warplanes pounded parts of Afrin city and villages around it, while there were skirmishes with Turkish forces and their rebel allies at the edge of Afrin.

Hevi Mustafa, a top member of the civilian administration that governs Afrin, said people were holed up in shelters and homes and several wounded people had arrived in hospitals.

Authorities in the Afrin region and war monitors say at least a million people live in the Afrin canton. Many of them are displaced from other areas.

Reuters cameramen in Hassa, near the border with Syria, heard the sound of heavy bombardment and saw thick plumes of smoke rising from the Syrian side of the border. The warplanes appeared to be striking from the Turkish side of the border, one of the cameramen said.

The attacks follow weeks of warnings against the YPG in Syria from President Tayyip Erdogan and his ministers. Turkey considers the YPG to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a deadly, three-decade insurgency in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.

Turkey has been particularly outraged by an announcement that the United States planned to train 30,000 personnel in a part of eastern Syria under the control of the YPG-spearheaded Syrian Democratic Forces.

Turkish officials have said the operation is likely to continue toward Manbij, further east. They also said that thousands of pro-Turkey civilians had escaped the YPG-controlled areas in an attempt to reach Aleppo.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K-based monitoring organisation said it was not true that people were fleeing en-masse.

The YPG’s growing strength across large parts of northern Syria has alarmed Ankara, which fears the creation of an independent Kurdish state on its southern border. Syrian Kurdish leaders say they seek autonomy as part of Syria, not secession.

The Turkish military said its Afrin operation was to provide safety for Turkey’s border and to “eliminate terrorists... and save friends and brothers, the people of the region, from their cruelty.”

“We will destroy the terror corridor gradually as we did in Jarabulus and Al-Bab operations, starting from the west,” Turkey’s Erdogan said, referring to previous operations in northern Syria designed to push out Islamic State and check the YPG’s advance.

Earlier on Saturday, the military said it hit shelters and hideouts used by the YPG and other Kurdish fighters, saying Kurdish militants had fired on Turkish positions inside Turkey.

But the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces - which the YPG spearheads - accused Turkey on Saturday of using cross-border shelling as a false pretext to launch an offensive in Syria.

Differences over Syria policy have further complicated Turkey’s already difficult relationship with NATO ally the United States. Washington has backed the YPG, seeing it as an effective partner in the fight against Islamic State.

A U.S. State Department official on Friday said military intervention by Turkey in Syria would undermine regional stability and would not help protect Turkey’s border security.

Instead, the United States has called on Turkey to focus on the fight against Islamic State. Ankara accuses Washington of using one terrorist group to fight another in Syria.</s>DAMASCUS: Damascus on Saturday denied Turkey had informed it of its planned military operation against Afrin, a Kurdish-controlled enclave in the war-ravaged country´s north.



"Syria completely denies claims by the Turkish regime that it was informed of this military operation," a foreign ministry source told state news agency SANA.

The assault, the source said, "is the latest move in Turkey's attacks on Syria's sovereignty".

"Syria strongly condemns the brutal Turkish aggression on Afrin, which is an inseparable part of Syrian territory."

Turkey on Saturday launched a new air and ground operation aimed at ousting the powerful Kurdish People´s Protection Units (YPG) from the Afrin region.

Ankara vehemently opposes the YPG because of its links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey for three decades.

In comments to media, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his government was informing the Syrian government "in writing" about the Afrin assault.

Afrin is a YPG-controlled enclave that juts out from Syria's Aleppo province and operates as an autonomous area, outside the control of Syria's government.

The regime has spoken out against the YPG's autonomous rule but has also lambasted Turkey's operations in Syria.

On Thursday, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad warned that Syria's air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in the new offensive.
With a cross-border artillery bombardment into the Afrin Canton, Turkey starts its announced military campaign to "destroy" the Syrian Kurdish YPG group.