Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies attacked Kurdish militia in northeast Syria, pounding them with air strikes and artillery before starting a cross-border ground operation that could transform an eight-year-old war. The 2019 Rojava offensive, called Operation Peace Spring by the Turkish government, is an ongoing military operation conducted by the Turkish Armed Forces and Syrian National Army (SNA) against areas under the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), commonly called Rojava, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). On 6 October 2019, the Trump administration ordered American troops to withdraw from northeast Syria, where the United States had been supporting their Kurdish allies. The military operation began on 9 October 2019 when the Turkish Air Force launched airstrikes on border towns.
According to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the operation is intended to expel the SDF—viewed as a terrorist organization by Turkey due to its ties with the Kurdistan Workers Party, but considered an ally against ISIL by the United States and others—from the border region, as well to create a 30 km-deep (20 miles) "safe zone" in Northern Syria where some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey can resettle. The Turkish action was internationally condemned. As of 10 October, 60,000 civilians are displaced by the Turkish attack.
Turkey and the United States struck a deal in August 2019 after months of Turkish threats to unilaterally invade Northern Syria. The United States viewed Syrian Democratic Forces as one of its key allies in the military intervention against ISIL in Syria, while Turkey viewed the group as an extention of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which it considers a terrorist group. The agreement established the Northern Syria Buffer Zone, which aimed to dissipate tensions by addressing Turkey's security concerns with monitoring and joint patrols, while still allowing the NES to retain control over the areas that it had under its control at that time. The agreement was received favorably by the US and SDF/NES, but Turkey was generally dissatisfied with it. Turkey's dissatisfaction led to numerous Turkish efforts to expand the area covered by the buffer zone, secure Turkish control over parts of it, or relocate millions of refugees into the zone, with all of these efforts failing in the face of firm SDF resistance and American ambivalence.
Despite the official start of US-Turkish ground patrols, the dismantling of SDF fortifications, and the withdrawal of YPG units from parts of the buffer zone, tensions continued to rise as Turkey levied yet more demands on the SDF—all of which the SDF denied, as they felt that they had accepted a harsh compromise by permitting Turkish troops to take part in joint patrols with their American counterparts in Northern Syria.[25] Turkey's dissatisfaction with the status quo of the agreement grew into open hostility, with the Turkish president openly posing an ultimatum against the SDF. The ultimatum was ignored by the group and Turkey declared its "deadline" to have expired at the start of October that same year.
