It's official: Turkey’s military offensive against Syrian Kurdish forces in Afrin has disrupted the US-led coalition’s fight against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. The Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which spearheads the fight against IS there, is redeploying hundreds of its men and women to defend Afrin, a mainly Kurdish city in northwestern Syria. The result is what a Pentagon spokesman yesterday labeled “an operational pause” in the ground campaign against IS remnants in the Euphrates River Valley bordering Iraq.
Col. Rob Manning sought to downplay the significance of the hiatus, telling reporters US airstrikes against IS holdouts in the area are continuing. “The nature of our mission in Syria has not changed,” he said, adding the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which includes thousands of Arab fighters, remained the coalition’s “major partner” in the battle against the jihadis.
