Ankara Launches Operation in Syria’s Afrin with Cross-Border Bombardment

A general view shows the Kurdish-controlled city of Afrin, northern Syria. (Reuters)
A general view shows the Kurdish-controlled city of Afrin, northern Syria. (Reuters)
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Ankara Launches Operation in Syria’s Afrin with Cross-Border Bombardment

A general view shows the Kurdish-controlled city of Afrin, northern Syria. (Reuters)
A general view shows the Kurdish-controlled city of Afrin, northern Syria. (Reuters)

Turkish Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli announced on Friday that the military operation in the Kurdish-held region of Afrin in northern Syria has gotten underway.

The cross-border bombardment took place after days of threats from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to crush the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin in response to growing Kurdish strength across a wide stretch of north Syria.

“The operation has actually de facto started with cross-border shelling,” confirmed Canikli, adding that no troops had crossed into Afrin.

Reuters TV filmed Turkish artillery at the border village of Sugedigi firing on Friday morning into Afrin region, and the YPG said Turkish forces fired 70 shells at Kurdish villages between midnight and Friday morning. Shelling continued in the late afternoon, said Rojhat Roj, a YPG spokesman in Afrin.

Roj said it was the heaviest Turkish bombardment since Ankara stepped up threats to take military action against the Kurdish region.

He said that the YPG will retaliate with force against any attack against Afrin.

Canikli said Ankara was determined to destroy the Kurdish group. “All terror networks and elements in northern Syria will be eliminated. There is no other way,” he said.

A US State Department official said that the Afrin shelling undermines regional stability and would not help protect Turkey’s border security.

“We do not believe that a military operation serves the cause of regional stability, Syrian stability or indeed Turkish concerns about the security of their border,” the official told reporters, stressing he had limited information about Turkey’s reported military moves.

“The kind of threats or activities which these initial reports may be referring to, we don’t think advance any of these issues. They are destabilizing.”

The United States has instead called on Turkey to focus on the fight against ISIS and not take military action in Afrin.

Turkey has been angered by US military support for the Kurdish YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces which spearheaded the fight against ISIS in Syria, and by an announcement that the United States would stay in Syria to train about 30,000 personnel in the swathe of eastern Syria under SDF control.

Turkey says the YPG is a terrorist group and a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party which has waged an insurgency in southeast Turkey for decades, and Canikli criticized Washington for its continued emphasis on countering ISIS.

Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin stated that his country’s measures against Afrin, Manbij and Jarablus or any other region is aimed at protecting its national security, and not directed against Syria’s Kurds.

Erdogan’s aide Gülnur Aybet meanwhile said that Ankara would reject the US-backed border force if it included the YPG, saying that it would be tantamount to a “terrorist army.”

Turkey is determined to thwart the formation of any terrorist entity along its border with Syria, she stressed.

In Russia meanwhile, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on Turkish claims that the Afrin operation was coordinated with Moscow.

He instead said that inquiries on this issue should be directed to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Former Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Airborne Troops Vladimir Shamanov announced that his country will not intervene militarily in Afrin, saying: “We have a special mission in Syria that is determined by agreements signed with the Syrian regime.”



UN: Lifelines Keeping People Alive in Gaza Are Collapsing

21 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Mourners pray near the bodies of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes, according to medics, during the funeral at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
21 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Mourners pray near the bodies of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes, according to medics, during the funeral at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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UN: Lifelines Keeping People Alive in Gaza Are Collapsing

21 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Mourners pray near the bodies of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes, according to medics, during the funeral at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
21 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Mourners pray near the bodies of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes, according to medics, during the funeral at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is appalled by an accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza "where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing," his spokesperson said on Monday.

"He deplores the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

"Israel has the obligation to allow and facilitate by all the means at its disposal the humanitarian relief provided by the United Nations and by other humanitarian organizations."

Israeli ground troops for the first time Monday pushed into areas of a central Gaza city where several aid groups are based, in what appeared to be the latest effort to carve up the Palestinian territory with military corridors.

Deir al-Balah is the only Gaza city that has not seen major ground operations or suffered widespread devastation in 21 months of war, leading to speculation that the Hamas militant group holds large numbers of hostages there. The main group representing hostages’ families said it was “shocked and alarmed” by the incursion, which was confirmed by an Israeli military official, and demanded answers from Israeli leaders.

Israel says the seizure of territory in Gaza is aimed at pressuring Hamas to release hostages, but it is a major point of contention in ongoing ceasefire talks.

The UN food agency, meanwhile, accused Israeli forces of firing on a crowd of Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid over the weekend. Gaza's Health Ministry called it one of the deadliest attacks on aid-seekers in the war that has driven the territory to the brink of famine.