Turkish troops on Sunday crossed over the Syrian border into the Afrin region on the second day of Ankara's operation against the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) Kurdish militia, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. Yildirim told Turkish reporters in a briefing in Istanbul that the troops crossed into the YPG-controlled region in Syria at 0805 GMT from the Turkish village of Gulbaba, the Dogan news agency reported. The state-run Anadolu news agency said that the Turkish army troops, whose number was not specified, were advancing alongside forces from the pro-Ankara rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA). Turkish forces on Saturday began a major new operation aimed at ousting the YPG from Afrin, pounding dozens of targets from the sky in air raids and with artillery. Yildirim was quoted as saying that the Turkish forces aimed to create a security zone some 30 kms deep inside Syria.

Source: dna January 21, 2018 11:03 UTC