Turkey's latest incursion into Syria has just begun, but the significance of when it will end deserves attention now. By the end of the fifth day (Jan. 24) of Ankara's operation targeting Kurdish control of Afrin, the Turkish army and its allied local forces, along with the close air support of Turkish warplanes, had reached about 7½ kilometers (4½ miles) into Syria from six beachheads and captured at least 11 villages. Now there is a new front at Mount Barsaya north of Azaz, where heavy clashes continue.

Contrary to general expectations, the operation was not launched from the relatively flat terrain of the Azaz/Tell Rifaat/Afrin line, but from the opposite direction, crossing hilly terrain in the north and northwest. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) first want to seize the dominating hill features and then lay a long-duration siege on the city, which has a population of 200,000. The TSK’s strategy seems to be to open multiple front lines in different areas to disperse the 8,000 to 10,000 troops of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and weaken their defense lines.

Unlike the earlier Operation Euphrates Shield (August 2016 to March 2017) that Turkey launched as a special forces operation, the Afrin effort began as a conventional armored movement. I’m inclined to define the Afrin effort as Turkey’s second “effect-based operation,” after Euphrates Shield. An effect-based operation relies on complex security to obtain a specific political outcome or effect on rivals’ strategic preferences rather than eliminating the enemy altogether or disrupting its will to fight. The prime objective now seems to be to influence the strategic goals of other actors with stakes in northern Syria, particularly the United States and Russia. So rather than eradicating the 8,000 to 10,000 YPG militants seemingly stuck in Afrin, Turkey wants to show it is a strong player capable of changing the operational environment.

Sources Al-Monitor spoke with in Ankara say political and security bureaucrats agree and are fully determined to expand the operation first to Manbij and then east of the Euphrates River to undermine US cooperation with the Kurdish YPG on the ground.