Erdogan Says "Operation Olive Branch" will Proceed Until Turkey Controls Manbij

The Turkish assault on the Kurdish-controlled northwest Syrian region of Afrin continues. The United States foothold in Syria is predicated on a fiction. That fiction is the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S. re-branding of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The YPG is a Syrian PKK militia.

There is a good story by Anne Barnard and Ben Hubbard, "Allies or Terrorists: Who Are the Kurdish Fighters in Syria?":

Y.P.G. leaders say theirs is a homegrown movement that sprang up to defend civilians in the early days of Syria’s war and against offensives by the Islamic State.

That role, and the backing of the United States, has transformed the group into the most prominent political and military force in northeastern Syria.

Formerly an impoverished and marginalized minority, Syria’s Kurds now administer substantial territory, where they are teaching Kurdish in schools and setting up local administrations. Critics have accused them of displacing Arabs.

American officials have long sought to minimize the Y.P.G.’s ties to the P.K.K., but Turkey is enraged that the United States is giving military support to a group that idealizes Mr. Ocalan, the sole inmate of an island prison in the Sea of Marmara.

Many Y.P.G. leaders speak openly of their history with the P.K.K., and Kurds from Iraq, Iran and Turkey have joined the movement in Syria.

Mr. Bonsey said there had been hope among the Americans that they could pull the Y.P.G. away from the P.K.K.

But such a prospect appears unlikely — especially with the Kurds now uncertain that they have solid support from the United States, which has sent mixed messages about how strongly it would back them against a Turkish onslaught.

The American ambivalence was clear on Wednesday in comments by Thomas P. Bossert, Mr. Trump’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“I’m not in any way critical of the Turkish decision, but I’m just praying for their longer-term strategic patience,” Mr. Bossert told reporters.

Asked if the Turks should withdraw, Mr. Bossert said, “I would prefer it if for now they would remove themselves from the capital of Afrin.”

The United States effectively gave a green light to the current Turkish offensive against Afrin, urging restraint but emphasizing that it does not work with the Y.P.G. there.

The enclave is in northwest Syria, not connected to a larger territory held by the Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast, where several small American military bases and several thousand American advisers are.

But Mr. Erdogan has threatened to attack that larger area, beginning with the town of Manbij. The Turks say the Americans promised that the Syrian Democratic Forces would withdraw from such majority-Arab areas after taking them from the Islamic State, but it has not.

The ingredients for this clash have been brewing since Syrians rose up against the authoritarian rule of President Bashar al-Assad in 2011. Within a few years, the northeastern province of Hasaka, with a large Kurdish population as well as Arabs and Assyrians, was effectively ruling itself.

As it became the area’s dominant force, the Y.P.G. tried to implement its vision of a utopian society, inspired by Mr. Ocalan. Influenced by Murray Bookchin, an American anarchist, Mr. Ocalan has called for autonomous rule by local committees unbound by national borders. Proponents say they do not seek to break up Syria but are leading a long-term social revolution that will ensure gender and minority rights.

Reuters is reporting that in a speech today Erdogan reiterated that the goal of Turkish military campaign is to take Manbij. Problem there is that is where the U.S. Special Forces have a base:

ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Turkish forces would sweep Kurdish fighters from the Syrian border and could push all the way east to the frontier with Iraq -- a move which risks a possible confrontation with U.S. forces allied to the Kurds.

The Turkish offensive in northwest Syria's Afrin region against the Kurdish YPG militia has opened a new front in the multi-sided Syrian civil war but has strained ties with NATO ally Washington.

Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group but the militia has played a prominent role in U.S.-led efforts to combat the hardline Islamic State in Syria.

Since the start of the incursion, dubbed "Operation Olive Branch" by Ankara, Erdogan has said Turkish forces would push east towards the town of Manbij, potentially putting them in confrontation with U.S. troops deployed there.

"Operation Olive Branch will continue until it reaches its goals. We will rid Manbij of terrorists, as it was promised to us, and our battles will continue until no terrorist is left until our border with Iraq," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

Any drive by Turkish forces toward Manbij, part of Kurdish-held territory some 100 km (60 miles) east of Afrin, could threaten U.S. efforts in northern Syria.

The United States has about 2,000 troops in Syria, officially as part of the international, U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

U.S. forces were deployed in and around Manbij to deter Turkish and U.S.-backed rebels from attacking each other and have also carried out training missions in the area.

Washington has angered Ankara by providing arms, training and air support to the Syrian Kurdish forces. Turkey sees the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a deadly insurgency in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast for three decades.