The Turkish army on Tuesday clashed with Kurdish militia in Syria in an operation that has already left three of its soldiers dead, as the United States voiced alarm that the offensive could endanger attempts to end the Syrian civil war. Speaking at the funeral of the first Turkish soldier to be killed so far in the four-day-old cross-border campaign, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Ankara would emerge victorious.
Turkey on Saturday launched operation "Olive Branch" aimed at rooting out the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Ankara sees as a terror group, from its Afrin enclave in northern Syria. The campaign has caused ripples of concern among Turkey's NATO allies, especially the United States which is still working closely with the YPG to defeat Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria.
In his strongest comments yet on the offensive, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged Turkey to show "restraint" and warned it could harm the fight against the jihadists. Mattis, on a visit to Indonesia, warned the offensive "disrupts what was a relatively stable area in Syria and distracts from the international effort to defeat" IS.
Turkish artillery on Tuesday pounded targets of the YPG inside Syria, the state-run Anadolu news agency said. Turkish drones were also carrying out attacks, state television said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said fighting was "very violent" to the northeast, northwest and southwest of Afrin.
The Observatory said the offensive took control of two villages so far. As well as the artillery and air strikes, Turkish ground troops and Ankara-backed Syrian rebels have punched over the border several kilometres (miles) into Syrian territory, taking several villages, according to state media. After intense exchanges, Turkey's forces took control of the hill of Barsaya, a key strategic point in the Afrin region.