Ankara: Turkey has completed preparations for a new operation in northern Syria to “destroy” a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers to be a terrorist group, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia holds territory east of the Euphrates River, where Turkey has repeatedly threatened to launch an fresh offensive.
“We are going to destroy the terrorist structure in the east of the Euphrates. We have completed our preparations, plans, programs regarding this issue,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling party in parliament.
Erdogan appeared to indirectly confirm Turkish state media reports that the Turkish military fired artillery shells at YPG positions east of the Euphrates in the Kobani region of northern Syria on Sunday. The YPG has held the area since 2015.
“In fact, in the past few days, we have begun real interventions against the terror organization,” Erdogan said, without giving further details.
“We are going to breathe down the necks of the terror organization with comprehensive and effective operations soon. As I have always said, we can come suddenly one night.”
Erdogan has previously made similar threats and on Friday gave the YPG a “final warning.”
While the YPG has worked closely with Washington against the Daesh group in Syria, causing tension between NATO allies Turkey and the US, Ankara says the militia is a “terrorist offshoot” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The PKK has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
The YPG holds swathes of territory in northern and northeastern Syria.
Earlier this year, Turkish military forces backed Syrian opposition fighters to retake the western Afrin region from the YPG during a two-month air and ground offensive.
Ankara previously launched an offensive between 2016 and 2017 against Daesh on its border with Syria and to stop areas under YPG control from joining.
Turkey says ‘plans complete’ for assault on Kurdish militia in Syria
Turkey says ‘plans complete’ for assault on Kurdish militia in Syria
- Erdogan has previously made similar threats and gave the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) a “final warning”
- YPG holds swathes of territory in northern and northeastern Syria
Hamas official says group in final stage of choosing new chief
- Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006
- Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza
CAIRO: A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian movement was in the final phase of selecting a new leader, with two prominent figures competing for the position.
Hamas recently completed the formation of a new Shoura Council, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new political bureau.
Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and the movement’s external leadership.
Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails are also eligible to vote.
The council subsequently elects the political bureau, which in turn selects the head of the movement.
“The movement has completed its internal elections in the three regions and has reached the final stage of selecting the head of the political bureau,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
He added that the race for the group’s leadership is now between Khaled Meshaal and Khalil Al-Hayya.
A second Hamas source confirmed the development within the organization, which fought a devastating war with Israel following its October 7, 2023 attack.
Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.
He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.
He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.
Last month, a Hamas source told AFP that Hayya enjoys backing from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassem Brigades.
After Israel killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as his successor.
Israel accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack.
He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s assassination.
Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections, given the risk of the new chief being targeted by Israel.
