ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday that Turkey’s ground assault on the Kurdish-held city of Afrin in northern Syria has begun.
Erdogan also said an operation in Kurdish-held Manbij, a town to the east, would follow.
Both towns are controlled by the Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as a terror group that threatens Turkey’s security due to its links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for more than three decades.
Mete Sohtaoglu, a prominent Middle East commentator, thinks that Turkey has gone ahead with its Afrin operation without the full support of Russia — the main sponsor of the Astana peace talks which also involve Turkey and Iran — and he expects the Syrian regime will take over the region if Turkey succeeds in ousting the Kurdish militias.
“Regime forces are also expected to enter Afrin,” Sohtaoglu told Arab News. “Under the Astana deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, Turkish military and regime forces agreed to not enter into direct conflict. Afrin will be put under the management of the Syrian regime at the end of the day.”
Since late Thursday, thousands of fighters from the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, who were expected to assist Turkey in its military offensive, have been bussed to the border, where military vehicles, equipment, and hundreds of troops were already massed.
Late on Friday, Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon allayed fears that the offensive could jeopardize relations between Turkey and the US, which sees the YPG as a key local partner in its fight against Daesh.
“One action does not typically result in chaos or a breakdown. We have regular communication with our ally Turkey. Allies do not always see eye-to-eye, but they are willing to work together,” Pahon told Andalou Agency.
Turkey has also reportedly constructed its fourth observation post in the Idlib de-escalation zone, as part of its commitments under the Astana deal. Turkey is tasked with establishing 10 more observation posts in the area as soon as possible.
Enes Ayasli, a research assistant at Sakarya University in Turkey, thinks that Turkey’s deployment along the western line of Idlib is a long-term strategic move by Russia. He pointed out that it will make Turkey “responsible” for militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham — also known as Al-Qaeda in Syria — and “their possible actions against regime forces and Russian air bases in Hmeimim and Tartus.”
In this way, he said, “Russia will secure its own existence in Latakia. It is clear that the last attack on Russian air bases increased the threat perception toward radical groups in Idlib.”
According to Ayasli, it is important that the Russian-backed regime forces prepare for possible confrontations with radical groups at the junction of Idlib and Aleppo.
“In the last three weeks, Daesh almost quadrupled its area of control,” he told Arab News. “In addition to that, some other radical groups are being targeted by regime forces. So Turkey’s securing western Idlib is a kind of warrant for Russia in its support of regime forces (in that area).”
Russia remains reluctant to comment on Turkey’s Afrin operation, although that region’s airspace is under Moscow’s control, while Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad recently warned that any Turkish planes attacking Afrin would be destroyed.
At a news conference on Friday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied claims that Russia had withdrawn its observers in Afrin ahead of a Turkish offensive.
Oytun Orhan, a researcher on Syria at the Ankara-based think tank Orsam, said that although the US does not consider Afrin as part of its operational area, it nevertheless feels a responsibility to protect the YPG.
“The latest contradictory statements coming from Washington are the result of a need to take a politically balanced position on this issue,” Orhan told Arab News. “But the US doesn’t have the tools to prevent a Turkish operation in the region, and it knows that it cannot deter Ankara merely with political statements.”
However, Orhan pointed out, the US is aware that if Turkey conducts an operation in Afrin without Russia’s consent, this may undermine the regional partnership between Ankara and Moscow and create an opportunity for the US to mend ties with Turkey, its longtime ally.
Orhan added that he does not believe the establishment of the fourth observation post in Idlib is part of Turkey’s operational preparations for Afrin.
“The first three posts provided Turkey with strategic superiority, as they were overlooking the Kurdish canton of Afrin,” he said. “According to the initial agreement between Turkey and Russia, both countries can cooperate on the Afrin issue only after Turkey establishes all 14 observation posts. So Turkey may want to accelerate this process to get a green light from Moscow.”
Turkey begins assault on Kurdish-held Afrin
Turkey begins assault on Kurdish-held Afrin
Israel’s settler movement takes victory lap as a sparse outpost becomes a settlement within a month
- Smotrich, who has been in charge of Israeli settlement policy for the past three years, has overseen an aggressive construction and expansion binge aimed at dismantling any remaining hopes of establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank
YATZIV SETTLEMENT, West Bank: Celebratory music blasting from loudspeakers mixed with the sounds of construction, almost drowning out calls to prayer from a mosque in the Palestinian town across this West Bank valley.
Orthodox Jewish women in colorful head coverings, with babies on their hips, shared platters of fresh vegetables as soldiers encircled the hilltop, keeping guard.
The scene Monday reflected the culmination of Israeli settlers’ long campaign to turn this site, overlooking the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, into a settlement. Over the years, they fended off plans to build a hospital for Palestinian children on the land, always holding tight to the hope the land would one day become theirs.
That moment is now, they say.
Smotrich goes on settlement spree
After two decades of efforts, it took just a month for their new settlement, called “Yatziv,” to go from an unauthorized outpost of a few mobile homes to a fully recognized settlement. Fittingly, the new settlement’s name means “stable” in Hebrew.
“We are standing stable here in Israel,” Finance Minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich told The Associated Press at Monday’s inauguration ceremony. “We’re going to be here forever. We will never establish a Palestinian state here.”
With leaders like Smotrich holding key positions in Israel’s government and establishing close ties with the Trump administration, settlers are feeling the wind at their backs.
Smotrich, who has been in charge of Israeli settlement policy for the past three years, has overseen an aggressive construction and expansion binge aimed at dismantling any remaining hopes of establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank.
While most of the world considers the settlements illegal, their impact on the ground is clear, with Palestinians saying the ever-expanding construction hems them in and makes it nearly impossible to establish a viable independent state. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, captured by Israel in 1967, as part of a future state.
With Netanyahu and Trump, settlers feel emboldened
Settlers had long set their sights on the hilltop, thanks to its position in a line of settlements surrounding Jerusalem and because they said it was significant to Jewish history. But they put up the boxy prefab homes in November because days earlier, Palestinian attackers had stabbed an Israeli to death at a nearby junction.
The attack created an impetus to justify the settlement, the local settlement council chair, Yaron Rosenthal, told AP. With the election of Israel’s far-right government in late 2022, Trump’s return to office last year and the November attack, conditions were ripe for settlers to make their move, Rosenthal said.
“We understood that there was an opportunity,” he said. “But we didn’t know it would happen so quickly.”
“Now there is the right political constellation for this to happen.”
Smotrich announced approval of the outpost, along with 18 others, on Dec. 21. That capped 20 years of effort, said Nadia Matar, a settler activist.
“Shdema was nearly lost to us,” said Matar, using the name of an Israeli military base at the site. “What prevented that outcome was perseverance.”
Back in 2006, settlers were infuriated upon hearing that Israel’s government was in talks with the US to build a Palestinian children’s hospital on the land, said Hagit Ofran, a director at Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, especially as the US Agency for International Development was funding a “peace park” at the base of the hill.
The mayor of Beit Sahour urged the US Consulate to pressure Israel to begin hospital construction, while settlers began weekly demonstrations at the site calling on Israel to quash the project, according to consulate files obtained through WikiLeaks.
It was “interesting” that settlers had “no religious, legal, or ... security claim to that land,” wrote consulate staffer Matt Fuller at the time, in an email he shared with the AP. “They just don’t want the Palestinians to have it — and for a hospital no less — a hospital that would mean fewer permits for entry to Jerusalem for treatment.”
The hospital was never built. The site was converted into a military base after the Netanyahu government came to power in 2009. From there, settlers quickly established a foothold by creating makeshift cultural center at the site, putting on lectures, readings and exhibits
Speaking to the AP, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister at the time the hospital was under discussion, said that was the tipping point.
“Once it is military installation, it is easier than to change its status into a new outpost, a new settlement and so on,” he said.
Olmert said Netanyahu — who has served as prime minister nearly uninterrupted since then — was “committed to entirely different political directions from the ones that I had,” he said. “They didn’t think about cooperation with the Palestinians.”
Palestinians say the land is theirs
The continued legalization of settlements and spiking settler violence — which rose by 27 percent in 2025, according to Israel’s military — have cemented a fearful status quo for West Bank Palestinians.
The land now home to Yatziv was originally owned by Palestinians from Beit Sahour, said the town’s mayor, Elias Isseid.
“These lands have been owned by families from Beit Sahour since ancient times,” he said.
Isseid worries more land loss is to come. Yatziv is the latest in a line of Israeli settlements to pop up around Beit Sahour, all of which are connected by a main highway that runs to Jerusalem without entering Palestinian villages. The new settlement “poses a great danger to our children, our families,” he said.
A bypass road, complete with a new yellow gate, climbs up to Yatziv. The peace park stands empty.
