“Turkey will launch a new military operation against U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria ‘within a few days,’ President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, a move likely to further strain ties between NATO allies Turkey and the United States. In recent months, Turkey has shelled Kurdish positions across the border in

Syrian Kurds have offered to assist the Syrian regime in their fight against one of the last remaining jihadi militant groups in exchange for Syrian support in retaking the nearby Kurdish area of Afrin from Turkish forces. Assad has previously announced that he is not opposed to working with the

“Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned US-backed Kurdish forces he wouldn’t hesitate to use force to retake one-third of the country they currently control. Assad also warned in an interview with Russia Today on Thursday that the United States should learn the lesson of Iraq and remove its troops from Syria.”