Anadolu Agency captures images from inside Syria’s Tal Rifat

By Omer Koparan, Ethem Emre Ozcan, and Mehmet Burak Karacaoglu

AZEZ, Syria (AA) - Anadolu Agency has ventured into the Tal Rifat area in northern Syria as Türkiye prepares to launch a military operation against the PKK/YPG terrorists that control the town and its surroundings.

PKK/YPG terrorists continue to hide out in Tal Rifat, a mere 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the Turkish border with a front line to the Operation Euphrates Shield zone, where Turkish security forces provide security after clearing it of terrorists in 2016-2017.

The images taken by Anadolu Agency from the district's central parts and exits show that the terror organization has hoisted the banner of the Bashar al-Assad regime on a large hilltop flagpole overlooking the town.

The name of the Syrian regime's leader is traced on the face of the hill facing residential areas. However, no regime soldiers or militias are visible in the district center.

Sources who spoke to Anadolu Agency in Tal Rifat said most of the terrorists were dressed in plain clothes, while only a small portion wore camouflage patterns. They usually hide in houses and tunnel-like recesses on the front line during the day, and are spread across the district in the evening, they said.

The YPG/PKK, which seized the district from the opposition in 2016 after Russian air strikes, settled there with thousands of its members and their families. Half of the terrorists' families have departed to regime-controlled areas since the beginning of June, due to Türkiye's expected cross-border operation.

Türkiye is gearing up for an anti-terror military operation against PKK/YPG terror group in the Tal Rifat area which also depicted as under the Syrian regime's control.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had announced that the country is set to clear Tal Rifat, along with the Manbij area which is also near the Turkish border, of terrorist elements in a bid to eliminate the terror threat from the region.

"We are entering a new phase of our decision to establish a safe zone 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) deep south (of the Turkish-Syrian border). We are clearing Tal Rifat and Manbij of terrorists," Erdogan stated.

- PKK/YPG's tactical rapprochement with Assad regime

After popular movements and armed resistance surged in Syria in 2012, the Assad regime left some areas in the north of the country to the PKK/YPG on ​​the condition that the terror group does not attack its forces.

The terror group provided strategic support for the regime and Russia during the siege and capture of Aleppo through the Sheikh Maqsoud district in its center.

The PKK/YPG entered a rapid rapprochement with the regime -- at the encouragement of Moscow -- at times when Turkish military action became more probable.

The group tried to deter Türkiye by presenting the occupied areas as being under regime control.

However, this cooperation proved short-lived when the organization insisted on geographical dominance and political autonomy and they were unable to reach a final agreement with the regime.

In 2018, Assad regime militias attempted to go to Afrin, another town in northwestern Syria, to assist the terror organization amid Türkiye's Operation Olive Branch on the area.

During Türkiye's Operation Peace Spring in 2019, the terrorist organization allowed regime forces into Manbij, where they were deployed on the front as the opposition was about to launch a push to liberate the region.

The Assad regime still has military checkpoints in the town center of Al Hasakah and Qamishli further east. The sides there periodically engage in short conflicts arising from the struggle for dominance.

Since 2016, Ankara has launched a trio of successful anti-terror operations across its border in northern Syria to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents: Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018), and Peace Spring (2019).

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK -- listed as a terror organization by Türkiye, the US, and EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG is the PKK terror group's Syrian offshoot.

* Writing by Seda Sevencan