“One of our [military] bases was attacked by YPG/PKK terrorists in Afrin using anti-tank warfare, injuring two of our soldiers. The attack was launched from Tel Rifaat region [southeast Afrin],” the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Friday.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG) is a predominantly Kurdish force in northern Syria. It forms the backbone of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls much of Syria’s north. Turkey claims that the YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it has listed as a terrorist organization.
While clashes between the YPG-affiliated forces and Turkish proxies in Afrin are common, the Turkish army rarely makes official confirmation of its own direct involvement or losses in them.
Though the ministry confirmed a retaliation to the attack, they did not disclose when the attack took place or their method of counter-attack.
Afrin Liberation Forces (HRE) - a Kurdish armed group in Afrin affiliated with the YPG - claimed it killed and injured an unspecified number of Turkish soldiers in Shera district, Afrin on Thursday, in retaliation to the shelling of villages in Shera by Turkish forces that killed of one of its members by the Turkish army.
"[T]he Turkish occupation forces shelled the inhabited villages in the Shera district especially the villages of Marnaz and Al-Malikiyah with artillery and mortar shells [on Thursday]. Clashes took place between our forces and the Turkish occupation soldiers and mercenaries in the village of Marnaz ... where one of our fighters was martyred,” it said.
“In response, our forces carried out a specific operation targeting a military base of the Turkish occupation near the areas of clashes in the district of Shera, which resulted in the death of a number of Turkish soldiers, we were unable to determine the number of wounded and dead. Helicopters hovered over the area of Afrin to transport the dead and wounded," added HRE.
Turkish forces and its Syrian proxies took control of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in March 2018, after a two-month offensive against the YPG which had been in control of the area since 2014.
Afrin had previously been under the control of Syrian regime forces, who withdrew during Islamic State (ISIS) offensives on the area.
Turkey wants to establish a buffer zone in northern Syria, in which millions of Syrian refugees who have to fled to Turkey during years of conflict are to be resettled.
Following multiple meetings, both the US and Turkey announced on Wednesday that they have agreed to establish a “joint operation center” to manage tensions between Kurdish forces in Syria and Turkey.
The deal, described by the US Embassy in Ankara as a way to “implement without delay the first measures aimed at eliminating Turkey's concerns,” followed fresh threats by Turkish officials to attack SDF-controlled areas in East of Euphrates in Syria.
Kurdish officials from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), known by many Kurds as Rojava, have warned that Turkish attacks will not end until it controls all SDF-controlled areas – and beyond.
“If Turkey attacks northern Syria, they will not stop until they invade the whole country, not only northern part of Syria,” Samira al-Aziz, member of the Future Syria party’s general council in Darbasiya, Hasakah governorate, told Hawar News, a media outlet close to the NES.
Similarly, Badran Jia Kurd, adviser to the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria told Reuters on Wednesday that any Turkish attack on the northern parts of Syria will result in creation of a “big war.”
