Turkish-led forces oust Kurds from Syria's Afrin

AFRIN, Syria – Turkey's flag was flying over Afrin on Sunday after its troops and Ankara-backed rebels chased out Kurdish militia forces to seize control of the Syrian city.

In a major victory for Ankara's two-month operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, Turkish-led forces pushed into Afrin apparently unopposed, taking up positions across the city.

The advance came as Syria's civil war entered its eighth year this week with heavy fighting on two fronts -- around Afrin and in the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

Hundreds have been killed and thousands forced from their homes by the ferocious assault in Ghouta, where President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday visited troops battling to retake the last rebel enclave close to the capital.

In Afrin, AFP correspondents saw Turkish forces and their Syrian allies in all neighbourhoods of the city after they made a lightning advance inside on Sunday.

Rebels fanned out across the city, giving victory signs and taking pictures with Turkish tanks parked outside official buildings.

But celebration soon appeared to turn to retribution and looting as pro-Ankara rebels began pillaging goods and a statue of a Kurdish hero was torn down.

Fighters were seen breaking into shops, restaurants and houses, before hauling off foodstuff, electronic equipment, blankets and other goods in trucks.

- 'Tails between their legs' -

As Turkey and its allies forces arrived to cement control over Afrin, civilians continued to flee the city.

Around 250,000 civilians left in recent days after pro-Ankara fighters took the surrounding region and all but encircled the city, fleeing southwards to territory still held by the YPG or controlled by the Syrian regime.

On Sunday 13 pro-Turk fighters were killed by landmines during search operations in Afrin, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkish-backed fighters had taken control of the city centre and said a "large number" of Kurdish fighters had "fled with their tails between their legs".

The Turkish leader has said the operation could move on to other Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria.

"Our work is not finished.... but terrorism is finished in Afrin," Turkish government spokesman Bekir Bozdag said.

Residents said it appeared that YPG units had withdrawn from the city without a fight.

But Kurdish authorities vowed to retake Afrin, one of three semi-autonomous Kurdish "cantons" in northern Syria.

"Resistance... will continue until every inch of Afrin is liberated," authorities representing the Afrin canton said in a statement.

"In all of Afrin's sectors, our forces will become a permanent nightmare" for pro-Ankara fighters, the statement said, promising "a switch from direct confrontation to hit-and-run attacks."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 280 civilians have been killed since the campaign began on January 20.

Ankara has denied the reports and said it takes the "utmost care" to avoid civilian casualties.

The Observatory said Sunday that more than 1,500 Kurdish fighters had been killed since the start of the offensive, most of them in air strikes and artillery fire.

More than 400 pro-Ankara rebels have also been killed, it said. The Turkish military says 46 Turkish soldiers have died.

Turkey sees the YPG as a "terrorist" offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

But the Kurdish militia has also formed the backbone of a US-backed alliance that successfully expelled the Islamic State jihadist group from large parts of Syria.

- Rebel evacuation deal? -

On another front near Damascus, thousands of civilians continued to stream out of Eastern Ghouta for a fourth day as the regime's Russian-backed air and ground assault appeared to have eased up.

Regime fighters have retaken more than 80 percent of the former rebel bastion since the offensive was launched on February 18, the Observatory says, slicing what remains into three pockets each held by different rebel groups.

More than 1,400 civilians have been killed in the offensive, including 274 children, and at least 65,000 civilians are reported to have fled the area in recent days.

On Sunday, bombing of the rebel areas of Eastern Ghouta killed six people, according to the Observatory.

Earlier Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that "the area is awaiting the announcement of a deal between Faylaq al-Rahman and Russia on an evacuation of rebels to northern Syria."

Buoyant Assad on Sunday paid a first visit in years to battered East Ghouta to congratulate his troops for the gruelling assault to oust rebels from near Damascus.

Syrian state television broadcast photos of the president dressed in a shirt and jacket surrounded by soldiers, some perched on a tank behind him.

"The inhabitants of Damascus are more than grateful and they will maybe tell their children in the coming decades how you saved the capital," he said.

Syria's conflict broke out in 2011 with protests against Assad.

He has maintained his grip on power despite global calls to step down and outrage at the brutal offensives he has waged to retake towns and cities from rebel fighters.