And so it starts -
The Times
Turkey poised to attack Kurds as US pulls troops from Syria
Turkey is gearing up for a full-scale offensive in Syria that could shatter Kurdish dreams of statehood and permanently reconfigure alliances in the eight-year civil war.
Hulusi Akar, the Turkish defence minister, said that Ankara was “intensely” preparing for operations east of the Euphrates river, an area currently held by the Syrian Defence Forces (SDF), a coalition largely comprised of Kurdish fighters. His comments came only hours after the US — which created the SDF as its ground force against Isis in 2015 and has supported it since then with weapons shipments, airstrikes and troops —
announced that it was pulling out of Syria.
President Trump used the SDF’s victory last week in Hajin, Isis’s last major Syrian stronghold, to declare that the US mission had been accomplished. But his announcement was preceded by days of diplomatic wrangling with President Erdogan, who had been threatening to attack Kurdish areas where US troops are operating. Their negotiations culminated in a phone call last Friday in which Mr Trump informed Mr Erdogan that the withdrawal was imminent. A US official told Reuters that “everything that has followed is implementing the agreement that was made in that call”.......
The threat of an imminent Turkish attack sparked immediate reactions from the Kurds inside northeastern Syria today. Activists told
The Times that Kurdish fighters had withdrawn from their bases in Amuda and Ras al Ain, next to the frontier, to Hassakeh, 60 miles inside Syrian territory......
US officials told Reuters that the Pentagon will also halt its air support in Syria — the decisive factor in the Kurds’ huge territorial gains over the past four years.....