The German government is facing calls to halt arms exports to Turkey after reports emerged that German-made Leopard tanks were being used in an offensive against the Kurdish YPG.

Some German politicians have requested that any moves to approve a tank upgrade deal be halted.

Turkish-led forces began an assault in Syria’s north-west on Saturday.

The row comes just weeks after the two countries’ foreign ministers vowed to improve bilateral ties.

Relations between the two Nato members have soured dramatically in recent years.

Reports on Friday suggested Berlin was moving to approve a request from Turkey for German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall to upgrade its Leopard 2 tanks, to make them less vulnerable to explosives.

The tanks are thought to have been used by Turkey against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. However, defence experts have claimed in German media that recent images from Turkey’s “Operation Olive Branch” appear to show them being used against Kurdish groups.

Politicians from both the left and right have spoken out against the tank upgrade deal, and asked the government to clarify its position on the Turkish offensive in the Afrin region of northern Syria.

Norbert Röttgen, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said it was “completely obvious” that Germany should not provide the upgrades.

He told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme the intervention by Turkish forces was “illegal, contrary to international law and counter-productive with regard to fighting ISIS”.

He said Turkey could not claim to be acting in self-defence because “there have not been any attacks on Turkey by Kurdish forces in Syria”.

Mr Röttgen praised the US for speaking out against the Turkish offensive, saying: “The Americans are the only Nato allies who are clear about what is happening. We quite often criticise the Trump administration but at this point they are more clear and more courageous than the others, and we should follow.”

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday that he had called his Turkish counterpart to express concerns about the humanitarian impact of the Afrin offensive.

Turkey’s president has vowed to “crush” the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, which controls Afrin and more than 400km (250 miles) of Syria’s northern border.

On Tuesday the United Nations said an estimated 5,000 people have been displaced so far in the clashes in the Afrin region. </s> A Syrian man sells food at a street market in the northern Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin on Monday (AFP photo)

AFRIN, Syria — Ammunition belts slung over their shoulders, voices cracking from the chanting, dozens of young Syrian Kurds amassed in Afrin's town square to enlist in the "resistance" movement against a Turkish-backed assault.

They wore mismatched military gear, some in jeans and others with scarves wrapped around their faces.

A few admitted it was the first time they had ever touched a weapon, but said they felt compelled to defend their hometown.

"Afrin is where I grew up, just like my parents and my grandparents before me. This is why it's a duty for me to fight for it," says Asmaa, 19.

The first-year journalism student at Afrin University decided last month to leave her studies behind and respond to a call to arms by local Kurdish authorities.

Town officials called for a "mass mobilisation" of civilians to fight an assault by Turkish troops and allied rebels on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin.

They estimate hundreds have joined so far — some deployed to the frontlines while others have volunteered for hospital shifts or rescue teams that search for survivors after bombardment.

Asmaa, a black-and-white scarf wrapped around her neck, says she enlisted to take part in the fighting.

"Today, I don't see myself as a student. I see myself as a fighter," she says assertively.

The crowd around her splits into two lines — one for young men and one for women — and begin marching through Afrin for an impromptu military parade.

As shopkeepers look on, the youth wave YPG flags and chant, "No to occupation!" and "Long live the heroic resisters!"

"There has been an increasing number of volunteers, and each young man or woman can choose which institution they want to volunteer for depending on their experience and capacities," says Rezan Haddu, a media adviser to YPG in Afrin.

"Some volunteered as YPG fighters, others provide logistical support like food, transportation, and clothes," he tells AFP.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebels began their cross-border assault on the Afrin region on January 20, and most of the fighting has been concentrated along the mountainous frontier.

Ankara has blacklisted the YPG as a "terror" group for its ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has waged a deadly and decades-long insurgency against the Turkish government.

Local authorities had to act quickly to hold off the offensive, says Jinda Tulhaldan, a leader in the Kurdish Youth Movement's Afrin branch.

"We give them a week of military training and teach them how to use weapons," says Tulhaldan.

"We know a week isn't enough, but we were attacked and had to defend our city with whatever we had in front of us."

The Afrin region juts out from Syria's northern Aleppo province, but it is governed under a semi-autonomous system established by Kurdish factions in 2013.

Under that system, people between the ages of 18 and 32 must spend one year in military conscription, says the YPG's spokesman in Afrin, Birusk Hasakeh.

Hasakeh says "hundreds" of recruits had now fully enlisted in the YPG and allied groups, including members of local government who had closed public office and taken up arms.

"Others decided to prepare tea and food to distribute to the fronts, and others are volunteering in the hospitals," he says.

"We were trained in light weapons from the youth centre in Afrin," says Tirij Hassan, a 22-year-old attending the recruitment rally.

"It's the first time I carry weapons, but I'm happy about it because I'll be defending Afrin, its people, and its children."

Turkey says it does everything it can to avoid hitting civilians.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 68 civilians have been killed including 21 children since Turkey launched operation "Olive Branch" last month.

At least three civilians have also been killed by rocket fire from Syria onto Turkish territory.

More than 100 YPG fighters and about the same number of pro-Turkey rebels have also died in the fight, the Britain-based monitor said.

"Turkish warplanes are bombing Afrin. They are bombing civilians and attacking us and our forces," says Farhad Akid, a 21-year-old agricultural engineering student in the Afrin city centre.

"As young men, we've pledged ourselves to resist, to protect Afrin and our people. We won't allow a single Turkish occupier to enter our blessed land." </s> Kurdish and Arab fighters have abandoned the U.S.-backed fight against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) to help their friends and families repel a Turkish offensive reportedly assisted by Syrian rebels seeking to take revenge on the Kurds.

“We’re preparing to head to Afrin,” Roshavam Qamishlo, a fighter from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) agency on Saturday. The enclave “needs us now more than ever.”

The U.S.-backed SDF, an Arab-Kurdish alliance primarily made up and led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), recently deployed 1,700 mainly Arab fighters to join their Kurdish allies in Afrin as Turkey claimed to have conquered “nearly half” of the region.

YPG fighters are the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which controls swaths of northern Syria and has declared autonomy in that region, something that the Russian and Iranian-backed Assad has indicated he may be open to as long as the Kurds remain part of Syria.

Citing the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors the conflict using a network of sources on the ground, AFP places the number of civilian deaths since the Turkey-led operation in Afrin started on January 20 at more than 170.

Meanwhile, the state-owned Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) claims Turkish troops and their allies have killed or wounded “up to 900 civilians.”

The Turkish military claims to have “neutralized” an estimated “3,055 People’s Protection Units (YPG)” in the ongoing operation in northern Syria’s Afrin region.

Turkey has called its NATO ally, the United States, to prevent fighters from the U.S.-allied YPG from moving into Afrin, Reuters learned from a spokesman for the Turkish president.

However, while the United States maintains it has no “direct relationship” with the YPG in Afrin, it has not stopped it from assisting its friend and families fighting against Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies, which include the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which has received American taxpayer-funded assistance in the past.

The United States has urged Turkey to halt its offensive in Afrin, noting that it is having a negative impact on the fight against ISIS.

Some experts, including former U.S. Amb. Ryan Crocker, have warned that America’s reluctance to assist the Kurds in Afrin will drive them to join the Iran, Russia, Syria coalition.

Turkey has long considered the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which both Washington and Ankara deem a terrorist organization.

However, the United States has continued to assist the YPG, which various American officials have described as an effective partner against ISIS.

Some Syrian rebels have joined Turkey’s side to take revenge on the Kurds, reports the Washington Post (WaPo), noting:

Syrian rebels who have joined Turkey’s cross-border offensive against a Kurdish enclave say they see the assault as a way to settle personal scores, and reports are mounting of looting and summary executions carried out by the Syrian fighters. Backed by Turkish troops and warplanes, thousands of Syrian rebels are now tightening their grip on the Kurdish-controlled Afrin enclave in northern Syria as part of an offensive that Turkey has framed as a matter of its national security.

At home, Turkey has been fighting against Kurds closely allied with the YPG for decades.

Since the civil war began in Syria in 2011, Assad troops and their Iranian and Russian allies have been fighting Turkey-assisted rebels, whom the dictator considers terrorists.

Now, the Turks and their Syrian rebel allies are facing off against the Kurds, their Arab partners, and pro-Assad fighters.

Citing various media reports, Breitbart News reported last month that “hundreds” of Iranian-allied Shiite troops loyal to Assad had joined the U.S.-allied YPG and their partners in Afrin to repel the Turkish offensive.

That first armed confrontation between the [Turkish Armed Forces] TSK and pro-Assad militias in northern Syria is cause for serious concern, especially for Moscow, because if the fight escalates to clashes between TSK and Assad’s army — rather than just supporting militias — it could mean the collapse of de-escalation efforts west of the Euphrates. Moscow’s vision for northern Syria is clear. On one side of the negotiation table, Assad will sit as the big brother under Russian wings with the Democratic Union Party [PYD] as the younger brother representing the Syrian Kurds, who must be pro-Russia, staunchly secular and leftist. On the other side of the table facing them will be the Syrian opposition, under the tutelage and control of Ankara.

Although Turkey supports anti-Assad rebels, tensions with the United States have driven Ankara closer to Moscow. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — A Syria war monitoring group says Turkish-allied militiamen are looting the northern Syrian town of Afrin after the Turkish military and allied Syrian fighters seized control of it.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday the looting began on Sunday, after the Turkish and allied Syrian forces marched into the town center and raised their flags there — nearly two months after the offensive on the Kurdish enclave started.

The troops faced little resistance from the Kurdish militia, which withdrew, vowing a “new phase” of guerrilla tactics against Turkish troops and their allied fighters.

The Observatory, which monitors Syria’s war through a network of activists on the ground, described extensive looting of shops, homes and cars in Afrin.

It’s unclear what Turkey plans after the capture of Afrin. </s> Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters fire an anti-aircraft gun during battles with Kurdish fighters on the outskirts of the town of Jandairis, in the region of Afrin, near the Turkish border on Wednesday (AFP photo)

QAMISHLI, Syria — Hundreds of kilometres away from family and friends, facing an attack by Turkey, Kurdish and Arab forces deployed in the eastern Syrian Desert against extremists have become increasingly frustrated.

Six weeks into the Turkey-led assault on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, young men and women are leaving the fight against the Daesh group in droves, heading west to help.

Kurdish militia have formed the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance that has successfully expelled Daesh from much of Syria with the backing of a US-led military coalition.

But as news of the battle in Afrin reaches them, the fighters have become reluctant to hunt down extremists in their last hideouts in Deir Ezzor province.

“We’re preparing to head to Afrin,” SDF fighter Roshavam Qamishlo told AFP on Saturday. The enclave “needs us now more than ever”.

He spoke at the funeral of three comrades-in-arms in the northeastern town of Qamishli, where dozens came to pay their respects to those killed in Deir Ezzor.

“They should have died in Afrin,” he said, as their coffins were displayed in the middle of the crowd, draped in the Kurdish colours of yellow, red and green.

Arab fighters, too, have opted to ditch battlefronts against Daesh to shore up lines of defence in Afrin.

On Tuesday, SDF commander Abu Omar Al Idlibi said 1,700 of his fighters — mostly Arabs from northern Syria whose families had sought refuge in Afrin — would be sent to defend the enclave in the coming week.

Afrin, which is controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, is one of three regions Syria’s Kurds hope will be part of a self-ruled federal region in the country’s north.

Turkey sees the YPG as a “terrorist” group and has bombarded the region with air strikes and artillery fire since January 20.

More than 170 civilians have died in the assault, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

Ankara, however, denies the claim and says it takes the “utmost care” to avoid civilian casualties.

The offensive has prompted a call-to-arms for the YPG and SDF, and one senior SDF official said that “hundreds of fighters from Afrin and who have relatives there have returned to defend” their people.

As a result, the US-led coalition declared an “operational pause” to its anti-Daesh fight in eastern Syria on Monday.

US and coalition officials have said they will not get involved in the Afrin fighting, and expressed concern it would detract from the SDF’s operations against Daesh.

In addition to reinforcements from Daesh battlefronts, other fighters have streamed into Afrin from Qamishli, Hasakeh in the northeast and Kobane further west, says Rezan Hedo, an adviser to the YPG in Afrin.

Others even travelled from the Kurdish neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsud in the northern city of Aleppo, Hedo tells AFP.

In Qamishli, another fighter, who gave his nom de guerre as Nushin Qamishlo, said he would also join the fight on the Turkish border.

“We all want to go,” said the 25-year-old, who sported a thick beard and whose head was wrapped in a bright blue scarf.

“We’re highly capable and will take on the Turks even without the coalition’s help.”

Fighter Al Ashqar Nuseen feared that losing Afrin could be a huge blow to his long-awaited dreams of a federal Syrian Kurdish region.

“We will defend Afrin with all our might, taking on the Turks like we did Daesh,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for Daesh.

Ali Omar, 65, a Syrian Kurdish bystander at the funeral in Qamishli, said he supported the Kurdish fighters withdrawing from Deir Ezzor.

“When it’s our interests, our people, our villages and our towns that are threatened, we’re forced to leave everything and head to defend our homeland,” he said.

But he questioned why the US-led coalition, which the Kurds have aided in its fight against Daesh in Syria, had not intervened to help the Kurds in Afrin.

“Why are we helping you in Deir Ezzor and other places, and you don’t help us in Afrin?”

Without help from any outside power, Syria’s Kurds have found themselves in the awkward position of having to ask for support from the Damascus regime.

Since last month, pro-regime fighters have been deployed alongside Kurdish fighters in Afrin on several fronts.

Abdel Salam Ahmad, a high-ranking official of the Kurdish Democratic that Society Movement, said Syria’s Kurds have lost faith in the international community.

“This region will not find stability until a fair solution is found for the Kurdish people,” he said. </s> BEIRUT/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes attacked pro-Syrian government forces overnight, killing at least 17 people in a village in the north of the Afrin region in northwestern Syria, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.

The dead included three members of the Syrian Kurdish YPG force, while the rest came from militias that support President Bashar al-Assad and entered Afrin last week to help repel a Turkish offensive, the Observatory said.

The Turkish military declined to comment on the Observatory report, but the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday that Turkish attack helicopters had killed nine YPG fighters in the west of Afrin.

Another Turkish news agency, Dogan, reported that Turkish and allied forces had started an operation on Friday morning to take control of the town of Rajo in Afrin.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebel groups began their operation against the YPG in Afrin in January, aiming to drive out the Kurdish militia, which Ankara sees as a terrorist group linked to an insurgency inside Turkey’s borders.

Despite making slow progress at first, the offensive has gained control over all Afrin’s border areas adjoining Turkey. Late on Thursday, the Turkish military said eight Turkish soldiers had been killed and 13 injured in clashes in Afrin.

Last month, after the YPG asked the Syrian government to send its army to repel the offensive, pro-Syrian government militias crossed into Afrin and deployed along the frontlines with Turkey.

However, the move did not deter the Turkish offensive and has not so far heralded any wider escalation involving the Syrian government and the forces that support it. </s> AIN DARA, Syria (A.W.)—Both the Syrian government and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor confirmed on Sunday that Turkish shelling of Syria’s Afrin region has seriously damaged the Ain Dara Iron Age temple.

In a statement published by Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, the Syrian government called for international pressure to be placed on Turkey to “prevent the targeting of archaeological and cultural sites in Afrin area, which is one of the richest areas in antiquities and cultural heritage in Syria.”

The statement goes on to say that the attack “reflects the extent of hatred, malevolence and the barbarism of the Turkish regime against the Syrian identity and against the past of the Syrian people and their present and future.”

Code-named by Turkey as Operation Olive Branch, the Turkish Armed Forces’ large-scale offensive on the Kurdish-majority Afrin Region of Syria was launched on Jan. 20. Officially, the offensive is against the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), its armed wing People’s Protection Units (YPG), and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions surrounding the Syrian city of Afrin. Although Turkey also says it is fighting ISIL, it is widely accepted that the terrorist organization does not have a presence in Afrin.

Turkey’s offensive has been widely criticized by many in the international community as an outright attack on the mostly Kurdish civilian population. During the first days of the operation, United States Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert urged Turkey not to engage in the invasion of Afrin, reiterating a statement made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who also assured that the U.S. had no intention of building a Syria-Turkey border force. The following day, Tillerson said the U.S. was very concerned, adding that the operation’s scope should remain limited and Turkey should “show restraint.”

On Jan. 24, U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a telephone conversation to “de-escalate, limit its military actions, and avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees.” The Pentagon also asserted Thursday that the “Afrin operations are impeding the task to eliminate ISIS.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the Turkish aggression against Afrin, calling the town “an inseparable part of Syria.” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called the Turkish invasion “terrorism,” noting that “Turkey’s aggression in the Syrian city of Afrin cannot be separated from the policy pursued by the Turkish regime since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis and built on support for terrorism and various terrorist groups.”

The Dara Iron Age Proto-Hittite Ain Dara temple, is located northwest of Aleppo, near the village of Ain Dara. The temple is noted for its similarities to the biblical Solomon’s Temple, also known as the First Temple. According to the excavator Ali Abu Assaf, the temple was in existence from 1300 BC to 740 BC.

According to several sources, the home of an Armenian family that had settled in Afrin following the Armenian Genocide was shelled on Jan. 24, killing Armenian Rosher Konis. The reports also indicate that Konis’s mother, Shamsa, and sister, Hanifa Konis, were gravely injured in the bombing.

The Hawar News Agency reported that Hartyon Kivork, a relative of the family, confirmed the killing. “[Our] ancestors fled the oppression of the Turkish authorities nearly 100 years ago in the result of the massacres committed by the Turks against the Armenians so that they headed towards Afrin to live in peace among their Kurdish brothers and all other peoples and sects living in the area.”

Kivork added that Turkish occupation army had “resumed its massacres,” which do not differentiate between people and launched “new massacres against all peoples in Afrin to leave our Armenian family as a victim of the Turkish crimes again.”

Hawar released a series of photographs of the injuries sustained by the Konis family, though most of the photographs were blurred and cannot be confirmed to be authentic.

According to several sources, three Armenian families currently live in Afrin. A sizable Armenian community lived there and in the nearby village of Azaz before the Syrian Civil War. Armenian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan told Armenian reporters on Monday that his ministry is trying to confirm Konis’s death. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):

The European Union’s top diplomat is criticizing Turkey over its military offensive in a northern Syrian town and is calling on Ankara to ensure that fighting eases in the conflict-torn country.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says: “I am worried about this.”

Mogherini told reporters in Brussels on Monday that international efforts in Syria are supposed to be “aiming at de-escalating the military activities and not escalating them.”

She urged Turkey, Russia and Iran to guarantee that conflict “de-escalation zones” are established as promised, to “guarantee that that is what happens on the ground.”

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Sunday the capture of the town of Afrin, previously controlled by the Kurdish militia known as the People’s Defense Units, or YPG.

Turkey’s state-run news agency says a booby trap bomb reportedly left by Syrian Kurdish fighters in the northern Syrian town of Afrin has killed 11 people — seven civilians and four Turkish-backed fighters.

Anadolu Agency says the explosion occurred late on Sunday in a four-story building that Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces were clearing for explosives.

Turkish troops and Syrian opposition fighters allied with Ankara marched into Afrin on Sunday, nearly two months after Turkey began its offensive on the enclave to drive out a Syrian Kurdish militia. Ankara considers the militia an extension of its own insurgency.

Kurdish officials and a war monitor say some pockets of resistance remain in the town of Afrin but the Kurdish militia, known as YPG, has largely withdrawn.

A Syria war monitoring group says Turkish-allied militiamen are looting the northern Syrian town of Afrin after the Turkish military and allied Syrian fighters seized control of it.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday the looting began on Sunday, after the Turkish and allied Syrian forces marched into the town center and raised their flags there — nearly two months after the offensive on the Kurdish enclave started.

The troops faced little resistance from the Kurdish militia, which withdrew, vowing a “new phase” of guerrilla tactics against Turkish troops and their allied fighters.

The Observatory, which monitors Syria’s war through a network of activists on the ground, described extensive looting of shops, homes and cars in Afrin.

It’s unclear what Turkey plans after the capture of Afrin. </s> Turkish troops have cleared “terrorists” from a strategic village in the Kurdish-held enclave in north-western Syria, Turkey’s prime minister has said.

Turkish troops have cleared “terrorists” from a strategic village in the Kurdish-held enclave in north-western Syria, Turkey’s prime minister has said.

Mr Yildirim said Turkish soldiers captured Rajo in Afrin district and pushed the “terrorists” back from the border with Turkey, tightening its grip on Kurdish militia in the sixth week of its offensive on the area.

Mr Yildirim told a rally the Kurdish Afrin district was surrounded by the military, special police and paramilitary forces, as well as allied Syrian opposition fighters. “We have cleared all areas near our borders of terror nests,” he said.

A fighter of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army secures Mersewa village in the greater Afrin district, Syria (Emrah Gurel/AP) The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict, said fierce clashes were still ongoing in Rajo, in north-west Afrin. If confirmed, Rajo would be the largest centre in Afrin to be captured since the Turkish offensive began on January 20.

Turkish borders run along Afrin’s western and northern borders. A Syrian territory controlled by Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters lies to the east. Syrian government forces control territory in the south. Turkish troops and allied Syrian fighters have been attacking Afrin from the north, west and east, and have formed a crescent around the district.

Turkey said it wants to oust the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, from Afrin, considering the group a terrorist organisation, an extension of a Kurdish insurgency within its own borders. Turkish soldiers hold a position on a hill in the greater Afrin district (Emrah Gurel/AP) Turkey said 41 of its soldiers have been killed since the operation began.

The US has no troops in Afrin, but said it fears the Turkish offensive could distract from the fight against IS in the east.

Complicating matters, fighters loyal to Syria’s government entered Afrin late last month to support the Syrian Kurdish militia, raising the spectre of a possible confrontation between Turkish and pro-government Syrian troops. The government continued its offensive against eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held region near the Syrian capital Damascus, despite a Russian-ordered five-hour humanitarian pause. A UN 30-day ceasefire has failed to take hold.

A Turkey-backed opposition fighter of the Free Syrian Army in the greater Afrin district (Emrah Gurel/AP) Syrian activists and rescuers said at least six civilians were killed in the ongoing bombing on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Syrian State TV said on Saturday that two children escaped from the region under gunfire from the rebels, who control eastern Ghouta.

Syrian government and Russian officials accuse the rebels of firing at a corridor set up for evacuation, preventing civilians from leaving. The corridor, manned by Russia military police and Syrian troops, has been set to open for five hours daily since Tuesday. An elderly Pakistani couple managed to leave after negotiations. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Syrian Civil Defence said six civilians were killed on Saturday in government bombings in eastern Ghouta.
British, American and German men are among a group of international volunteers who travelled to Afrin to fight against Turkish-led forces in north-west Syria.