ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday threatened to expand Turkey’s offensive against the Afrin region in Syria to other cities in the country’s north to remove the presence of the Syrian Kurdish militia that Ankara views as terrorists.
“We will continue our fight until there is no terrorist on our border leading to Iraq,” Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara, vowing to “clean up” the city of Manbij, east of Afrin, also held by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia.
Turkey launched its military operation dubbed “Olive Branch” against the YPG on Saturday, supporting Syrian rebels with ground troops, air strikes and artillery fire.
While the YPG is still working closely with Washington against the Daesh extremist group in Syria, Ankara views the YPG as a terror group allied to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) inside Turkey.
The PKK is blacklisted by Ankara and its Western allies as a terror outfit.
The seven-day offensive has seen Washington’s NATO ally Ankara attacking a US-allied force, even raising fears of military confrontation between two alliance powers since the US has a military presence in Manbij.
Erdogan promised the operation would continue until “we reach our goals,” adding: “After we will, as promised, clean up Manbij of terrorists.”
Tensions between Ankara and Washington are already high but the operation added further strain to the allies’ relationship. The two sides disagreed about the content of telephone talks between Erdogan and US President Donald Trump late on Wednesday.
The US said Trump had urged Turkey to “limit its military actions” but a Turkish official said the US statement did “not accurately reflect the content” of the call.
Erdogan criticized Turkey’s allies, including the US, who have called, he said, for the operation to be “short” and “limited” in scope, referring to previous interventions.
“How long has Afghanistan lasted? Nearly 20 years. How long has it lasted in Iraq? Nearly 18 years!” he thundered.
Erdogan added that “343 terrorists were neutralized” during the operation thus far. It was not possible to independently verify the toll.
Three Turkish soldiers have been killed since the start of the offensive, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said 58 Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and 53 US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and YPG fighters had been killed.
Turkey’s Erdogan threatens to expand offensive to other northern Syrian cities
Turkey’s Erdogan threatens to expand offensive to other northern Syrian cities
Gaza death toll far higher than initially reported: Lancet study
- Israel killed 25,000 more people by start of 2025 than was reported by authorities
- ‘It will be a long time before we get to a full accounting of all the people killed in Gaza, if we ever get there’
LONDON: The war in Gaza saw 25,000 more deaths in its first 16 months than authorities announced at the time, according to the Lancet.
Research published by the medical journal estimated that 75,000 deaths occurred between Oct. 7, 2023, and Jan. 5, 2025, including 42,200 women, children and elderly people.
The authors of the study published on Wednesday said: “The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict.”
Last month, an Israeli security officer told Israeli media that casualty figures published by Gaza’s health authorities were largely accurate, having previously downplayed or questioned their size, adding that around 70,000 people were thought to have been killed in Israeli assaults since Oct. 7, 2023.
Gaza’s health authorities say 71,660 people are confirmed to have died, including 570 since the singing of a ceasefire last October.
The new research suggests that those figures are below the reality. Using trained Palestinians on the ground in the enclave, it surveyed 2,000 Gazan families who were asked to provide details about members killed in the conflict.
One of the report’s authors, Prof. Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway, University of London, said the research found that 8,200 people also died in the surveyed period from “indirect” causes such as disease and hunger.
Despite covering the most intense period of the conflict, the study does not analyze anything beyond January 2025. In August, famine was declared in Gaza by UN-backed experts.
In November, a study conducted by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research suggested that 78,318 people had been killed in the enclave by Dec. 31, 2024.
Its higher casualty rate was ascribed to a larger number of indirect fatalities, which contributed to life expectancy in Gaza dropping by 44 percent in 2023 and 47 percent in 2024.
“It will be a long time before we get to a full accounting of all the people killed in Gaza, if we ever get there,” said Spagat, who has studied conflict zones for 20 years.
