Click to see the full-size map
On February 7, the Turkish Army and its proxies of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) captured Hawiz Hill, Khuroz Mount and the villages of Sheikh Khuroz Fawani, Sheikh Khuroz Wastani and Sheikh Khuroz Tahtani in the Bulbul district north of the city of Afrin, according to Syrian opposition sources.
Moreover, the Turkish Anadolu Agency reported that the Turkish Army had foiled a VBIED attack of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) on a position of the Turkish-backed FSA west of Afrin on February 6. The source said that a battle tank of the Turkish Army destroyed the YPG’s VBIED before it was able to reache its target.
Meanwhile, the Turkish army artillery shelled several positions of the YPG along the border with Turkey, according to Kurdish sources. However, the Turkish Air Force (TAF) didn’t conduct any airstrikes in the Afrin area for the third day in a row. This may confirm earlier reports that said Syria and Russia had closed the airspace over Afrin on February 5.
TAF drones over southern Turkey along the border with Afrin area via flightradar24.com, click to see the full-size image
The military operations of the Turkish Army and the YPG in the Afrin area slowed down during the last two days. Observers believe that this decrease in violence could allow both sides to reach a political agreement for the crisis in Afrin soon.
