Turkish troops began crossing the border near Afrin on Sunday as a part of a campaign deemed “Operation Olive Branch.”
After over a week of cross-border shelling by Turkish artillery and then a flurry of airstrikes that allegedly took out 153 Kurdish targets,
Turkey has finally begun sending ground troops across the Syrian border
into Afrin. Afrin is currently under the control of the U.S.-backed
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group primarily led by the Kurdish
People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Turkey has framed the Operation Olive Branch as having two objectives:
To end the threats posed to Turkey by the YPG and their allies in the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
To aid Turkey’s allies in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in capturing territory from the Kurds.
