Got em!
New video reportedly shows a female fighter of the YPJ use a Russian-made ATGM to destroy a Turkish proxy force pickup truck during the ongoing fight for Afrin, Syria.
The Turkish military teamed up with jihadist fighters, including Syria’s al Qaeda affiliate to mount an offensive against the Kurdish enclave of Afrin on the Turkey/Syria border.
Turkey claims the YPG/YPJ Kurds are the same group as the PKK/HPG separatist group operating inside Turkey. Turkey calls YPG (the US-backed group that basically beat ISIS in Syria) “terrorists” while standing shoulder to shoulder with al Qaeda.
The female fighter highlighted in this video represents the YPJ (Female Protection Units), which is the all-woman version of the YPG. If you’ve watched enough footage on this site, you would see that women taking active front line roles and holding tactical command positions is common.
Turkish warplanes have been indiscriminately bombing the city of Afrin in what is being called a massacre by those not yet killed. Surviving families have been forced to take shelter inside nearby caves.
The US has been extremely limp on Turkey’s use of force against the Afrini Kurds, but one would hope that the ATGM fired in this video was sourced to them by the US’ covert armament program.
The US did say that they would not give their positions in Manbij, further to the east, if Turkey tried attacking that as well, although one analysis predicted that Turkey would heed America’s warning and not attack Manbij. NATO allies have never intentionally engaged each other in combat.
What is left of ISIS is taking Turkey’s operation as an opportunity to retake hard-fought, strategic ground from the YPG Kurds of…