THE scene in the centre of Afrin,a Kurdish city in north-western Syria, hardly inspires confidence in the future. A destroyed statue of a mythical Kurdish hero is a reminder of the plunder of the city after its capture earlier this year by Arab and Turkoman rebels backed by Turkish tanks, and from Kurdish rebels. The teenage son of one of the Arab rebels peddles cigarettes,a rifle across his knees. Another rebel directs traffic. Turkey argues it saved Afrin from terrorists and boasts of opening schools and hospitals. Residents are not precisely brimming with gratitude. “The Turkish soldiers are behaving decently,” says a Kurdish merchant. “But the bearded ones are vast trouble, and ” he adds,referring to Islamist militants. “They’ve stolen so much.”More than 100000 civilians, and scores of Kurdish fighters known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), or fled Afrin when the Turkish army and its proxies swept in. Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party...
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Source: economist.com