Turkish security sources said on Sunday that the Syrian opposition’s Syrian National Army blocked a bid by the terrorist group PKK/YPG to create a “terror corridor” amid a lightning offensive by Syrian anti-regime forces toward Aleppo.
Türkiye has been a supporter of the Syrian opposition in its efforts to drive away terrorist groups PKK/YPG and Daesh in Syria’s north. Ankara’s cross-border offensives helped the Syrian National Army to take control of areas near the Turkish border, which were plagued with terror attacks.
Earlier this week, Syrian anti-regime forces started an unprecedented advance toward Aleppo to take control of the province from the Assad regime forces. At the same time, the PKK/YPG sought to establish a corridor connecting Tal Rifaat to northeastern Syria, Turkish security sources said. The sources said that PKK/YPG had sought to take advantage of Syrian regime forces withdrawing from parts of the country. The corridor would have linked the PKK/YPG-held northeastern regions to Tel Rifaat, a strategic area northwest of Aleppo. “Upon this move by the PKK/YPG, which aimed to capitalize on the opposition’s advance toward Aleppo, Syrian National Army groups launched the ‘Dawn of Freedom Operation’ and quickly moved into action. By cutting off the road between Raqqa and Aleppo, they prevented the PKK/YPG from creating a terror corridor linking Tel Rifaat to northeastern Syria,” sources said.
Sources stated that the Assad regime has been abandoning territories under its control in the eastern Euphrates region to PKK/YPG and this helped the terrorist group to dispatch terrorists from eastern Euphrates to the Aleppo, along with heavy weaponry.
On Saturday, Abdurrahman Mustafa, head of the Syrian National Coalition, announced the Dawn of Freedom as he spoke to Turkish broadcaster A Haber. Mustafa said the PKK/YPG sought to merge Aleppo and Tal Rifaat and took control of several places, including an airport and a military school, along with a power plant and a water utility. He stated that their operation took back those areas. Mustafa said Assad was “exhausted” of resources, but they faced the danger of PKK taking advantage of the situation and dividing Syria. “We dealt a blow to Assad-PKK cooperation with our operation,” he said.
Since 2015, the PKK/YPG has occupied several Syrian provinces, including Arab-majority Deir el-Zour, a resource-rich region bordering Iraq, bisected by the Euphrates River and home to dozens of tribal communities. The terrorist group has forced many locals to migrate, bringing in its members to change the regional demographic structure, conducting arbitrary arrests, kidnapping children of local tribes for forced military recruitment and assassinating tribe leaders to yoke local groups. It has also seized the region’s oil wells – Syria’s largest – and smuggles oil to the Syrian regime, despite U.S. sanctions, to generate revenue for its activities.