This is part two of a three-part series. Read part one here: https://npasyria.com/en/53302/
Constant Turkish threats against the green jewel of northern Syria became a reality at 4:00 PM local time on Saturday, January 20, 2018, when 72 warplanes flew over Afrin, bombing everything in their path.
The ground war began the next day, as 25,000 Turkish soldiers and more than 25,000 Turkish-backed militants poured into Afrin.
What followed was around two months of fierce battles between Turkish forces and their affiliated armed opposition groups supported by armored vehicles, tanks, artillery, warplanes and drones. 5,000 fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and 3,000 members of the Internal Security Forces (Asayish) took on the second largest army in NATO with their light and medium weapons.
Regime “intervention”
Before and during the Turkish offensive, rumors circulated that the Autonomous Administration and the Syrian regime reached a Russian-sponsored deal that would involve the deployment of Syrian government forces in Afrin to curb the Turkish attacks.
However, the reality on the ground was different, as less than 200 fighters belonging to pro-government militias entered the area, and nearly all were quickly wiped out by Turkish warplanes.
The YPG had previously provided assistance to the Syrian army in a number of areas, such as the supply routes they opened for civilians and pro-Assad militias in Nubl and Zahra, as well as the role they played in the campaign waged by Assad and the Russians in the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo city.
Both the YPG and the Autonomous Administration issued statements in which they called on the Syrian army to enter Afrin and face the Turkish army, while the regime released no statement or response to this appeal.
The regime did not provide any help for the YPG’s resistance against the Turkish incursion for one critical reason: Russia did not allow Assad to foil its plot.
Moscow’s plot
Russians attempted to build relations with the Kurdish authority in Afrin, supporting the YPG with light weapons and equipment. Their presence in the region began on March 19th, 2017, when they established a military headquarters in Kafr Jannah village, east of Afrin city.
Initially, the civilian population was optimistic. “In the beginning, everybody was happy … [they thought that] Russian presence in the area would stop the Turkish attacks, and even the possibility of Turkish attacks,” former YPG fighter Ahmed (a pseudonym), who was present in Afrin during the invasion, told North Press. “It was like a guarantee of the safety of Afrin.”
From the beginning, however, Moscow’s ulterior motives were clear. Ahmed described communications between Russian forces and the YPG more as organized blackmail than as negotiations, explaining that Russia would frequently threaten to unleash the Turkish military on Afrin when they did not get their way.
“You have to work with the Syrian government, you have to allow them into the area, you have to cooperate with them,” Ahmed recalled the Russian attitude towards talks with the YPG. “They said, ‘if you will not work with Syria, the road between Aleppo and Afrin will be cut.’”
When the YPG did not agree to Russian terms, the Russians “packed all their stuff, put it in the car, and left the base,” Ahmed said.
“They used to trust the Turks. They never trusted the YPG,” he added.
Before the offensive began, Russian soldiers evacuated their headquarters at Kafr Jannah and withdrew to their bases in the Shahba region.
In an interview with North Press, the then-co-chair of the Afrin Region Hevi Mustafa said, “There was coordination room between us and the Russians, and they had a headquarters. They always promised not to let Turkey to attack us, but they suddenly withdrew and gave Turkish warplanes the green light.”
Mustafa pointed out that it became clear that there was a deal, as “things have gone according to Russian interests.”
“In one of our meetings with them, they literally said, ‘We got things from the Turks that are worth ten times your Afrin’,” she noted.
War rages on as the world watches
While Turkey was bombing and attacking Afrin and uprooting its people, houses, and precious olive trees, Syrian government forces were invading Ghouta to secure the vicinity of Damascus as part of the Russian-backed “Four Towns Agreement.” This agreement stipulated that fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), along with their families and weapons, would leave the towns of Zabadani and Madaya in Ghouta, and the towns of Kafrayya and Fou’a in Idlib, to settle in Afrin.
Another YPG fighter present during the Afrin invasion, who goes by the code name Bagok, recalled when his unit was watching television in a house during the early stages of the invasion while multiple channels reported a ceasefire in Syria. “Despite the ceasefire being brokered for ‘all of Syria,’ no one mentioned Afrin; it was all Eastern Ghouta,” he explained.
While international media laser-focused on Ghouta, they neglected the massacres and violations committed by the Turkish military and the Turkish-backed opposition groups in Afrin.
“These guys were like something like a skin-wearing blood cult from some post-apocalyptic world. They reveled in the deaths of our comrades and innocent civilians alike. They literally danced on the bodies of our fallen comrades,” Bagok described. “They called up our commander and taunted him, sending photos of them with the bodies of our comrades, playing football with their severed limbs.”
During this period, the UN Security Council held several sessions to discuss the developments in Ghouta and the process of handing it to the Assad regime, and it became obvious to observers that Afrin and its inhabitants were merely a card to trade in return for Ghouta in the international power struggle in Syria.
With the war in full swing, Afrin’s officials and activists appealed to the international community to stop the Turkish slaughter, but to no avail.
“We contacted all parties concerned. We sent messages to humanitarian organizations. We sent delegations and received delegations, but there was a deal,” Hevi Mustafa stated.
Eventually, after months of ferocious resistance against all the weapons and fighters Turkey could muster, the Kurdish-led forces were forced to make the heartbreaking choice to leave Afrin.