Turkey to step up offensive against Kurds, expected to launch full-scale invasion of Syria: Report

Amid chaos in the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, Turkey appears set to invade Syria and ramp up the offensive against Kurds.

Even as Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were on their way to Damascus, Turkey along militias it sponsors had opened a front against Kurds , an ethnic community that runs an autonomous administration in northeastern Syria called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

Following Assad’s ouster, the Islamist group HTS has joined Turkey and its militias, such as the Syrian National Army (SNA), in the offensive against Kurds in at least three places. The top commander of Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has warned that the country could be headed towards another round of a "bloody civil war" if the Turkey-HTS combine continues its attacks.

Amid such a situation, Wall Street Journal has reported US and Kurdish officials as saying that Turkish military and militias have mobilised along Turkey’s border with Kurdish-held Syrian territory for an invasion that appears to be imminent.

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In Syria, Kurds are the main US ally in the war against Islamic State. Turkey, however, considers Syrian Kurds enemies and equates SDF with the Kurdish group PKK, which it blames for an insurgency inside Turkey and considers a terrorist group. For years, Turkey has attacked Syrian Kurds with the intention to limit the size of AANES and push them farther from the Turkish border.

Turkish commandoes, artillery set to invade Syria: Report

Turkey has mobilised its military, including uniformed commandoes and artillery, along with its militias at the border with Syria’s Kurdish territory in what appears to be preparation for a large-scale incursion, senior US officials told Wall Street Journal.

A US official told the newspaper that a cross-border Turkish operations appears “imminent”.

The report comes after US-brokered ceasefire between Turkey and Kurds broke down on Monday (December 16).

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Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin quoted an SDF official as saying that Turkey has communicated to Kurds that the ceasefire was over and Kurds are formally entering a state of combat.

“The ceasefire period with the Turkish factions has ended today. Their leader informed us that they will return to a state of combat, as the Turks have rejected our proposal in Kobani and the negotiations have failed. We are now observing significant military buildups in areas east and west of Kobani,” the SDF official told Griffin, according to her post on X.

Ilham Ahmed, an official in the SDF, told US President-elect Donald Trump on Monday in a latter that Turkey’s goal is to “establish de facto control over our land before you take office, forcing you to engage with them as rulers of our territory”, according to Journal.

“If Turkey proceeds with its invasion, the consequences will be catastrophic,” said Ahmed.

A Turkish invasion would displace over 200,000 Kurdish civilians in Kobani alone, including many Christian communities, Ahmed warned Trump.

Turkey’s war on Syrian Kurds

Since the Syrian opposition forces’ decisive push for Damascus, the Kurds have been attacked in at least three places . On Dec. 7-8, the Turkey-SNA combine attacked Kurds in Manjib in eastern Syria. The attack in Manjib was followed by SNA’s offensive against the SDF in Kobani. Then, the HTS last week captured the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor from the Kurds, who had captured the city from Assad’s forces the previous week.

Last week, Fox’s Griffin quoted a Kurdish source as saying the community fears an ethnic cleansing amid ongoing attacks.

The comment came amid in the light of Turkey’s record of facilitating ethnic cleansing in recent years. Before Syria where Turkey supports anti-Assad and anti-Kurd groups, Turkey had sponsored Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2023.

“The Turks have begun moving toward Kobani. We need to stop this as quickly as possible. This is extremely dangerous and threatens the existence of the Kurds in Syria. Ethnic Cleansing ongoing and Civil War alarm bells start to ring,” the source told Griffin.

Amid such a situation, General Mazloum Abdi, the commander of SDF, told Fox last week that Kurds were under “constant attack from the Turkish military and the Turkish-supported opposition which is called SNA”.

Mazloum said that Turkey was carrying out up to 81 drone attacks a day amid “intensive” artillery bombardment. He added that such an offensive has “paralysed our counterterror operation”.