Turkish Forces Seize Afrin

Turkish troops and Turkey-backed rebels seized the northern Syrian city of Afrin on Sunday, after nearly two months of clashes with Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) controlling the area.

Turkish special forces and Syrian rebels backed by Turkey are now searching the area for landmines, but Turkish deputy prime minister Bekir Bozdag said on Monday that Turkish forces would not remain in Afrin. He added that “We are not permanent there (in Afrin) and we are certainly not invaders. Our goal is to hand the region back to its real owners after clearing it of terrorists,” he said, according to Reuters.

Kurdish officials promised retaliation against Turkish forces. “Our forces are present all over Afrin’s geography. These forces will strike the positions of the Turkish enemy and its mercenaries at every opportunity,” YPG representative Othman Sheikh Issa said on Sunday in a televised press conference, according to Al Jazeera. “Our forces all over Afrin will become a constant nightmare for them.”

More than 200,000 people have fled the offensive in Afrin, top Kurdish civil authority official Hevi Mustafa told Reuters.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on Monday for access to the civilian population remaining in Afrin, claiming that the Turkish Red Crescent lacked “credibility” among the local population, Reuters reported.

Kurdish officials estimated that some 800 YPG fighters and 500 civilians have been killed since the Turkey began “Operation Olive Branch” in Afrin on January 20, according to the AP. The United Kingdom-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) put the number of civilian casualties at more than 280, in addition to some 1,500 Kurdish forces killed.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that some 3,603 “terrorists had been neutralised,” which could mean they had been killed, captured or had surrendered, Al Jazeera reported. In addition, Ankara said 46 Turkish soldiers were killed during the operation, according to the AP.

Evacuations Continue From Eastern Ghouta

More than 6,000 people left the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus on Monday, Reuters reported, citing Interfax news agency.

The latest evacuation comes days after the first mass exodus of civilians from the opposition-held enclave since pro-government forces launched a fierce offensive on rebels there one month ago, and the biggest since the area came under siege in 2013. The SOHR estimated last week that 20,000 people had left the Eastern Ghouta last Thursday.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad visited Syrian soldiers in Eastern Ghouta on Sunday, and filmed himself driving to the area in his car, wearing sunglasses, according to Reuters.

Sanctions Over Chemical Weapons

The European Union imposed sanctions on four more individuals for their alleged role in the “development and use of chemical weapons” against civilians in Syria, the European Council of the E.U. announced on Monday.

Among the four individuals are “a high-ranking military official and three scientists” who work at the Scientific Studies and Research Centre, a government-run research facility accused of developing and producing non-conventional weapons, according to the E.U.

Recommended Reads:

• The Washington Post: Will Trump Let Assad Get Away With Using Chemical Weapons in Syria?
• The New York Times: On the Road in Syria, Where Covering the War Is a Paper Chase
• Human Rights Watch: Russia Backs Syria in Unlawful Attacks on Eastern Ghouta
• Agence France-Presse: What Does Turkey’s Seizure of Afrin Mean for Syria War?
• The Independent: After My Recent Trip to Syria, I Knew Afrin’s Fall Was Inevitable – Now We Must Concern Ourselves with the Next Phase of War