ANKARA
Supporters of the PYD/PKK terrorists are trying to smear Turkey’s Olive Branch Operation in Afrin in northwestern Syria by using images of the Assad regime's persecution of Syrian children.
The terrorist sympathizers were using images of children injured years ago at different places in Syria as if they had been harmed during the ongoing Operation Olive Branch in Afrin. Such fake pictures are then circulated on social media to smear Turkey’s Afrin operation.
Since 2011 Syrian children have faced airstrikes, chlorine gas attacks or armed conflicts while the black propaganda campaign launched by terror supporters were now exploiting bodies of innocent children.
After failing to find any injured children in Afrin, the online propaganda accounts were using pictures of injured children hit by the bloody Assad regime to smear Turkey's operation.
Terrorist supporters who are carrying out such black propaganda were trying to exploit the pain of Syrian children.
Several images shared on social media under the lie “Turkish army targets children in Afrin” actually took place in Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta or in Homs where in fact the Assad regime had targeted children.
The image of fear in the eyes of the two Syrian brothers who were afraid of an air attack and the faces of children who look at the walls of a destroyed house in Homs reflect the suffering of hundreds of thousands of children targeted by the Assad regime in Syria.
The image of an infant under rubble in Aleppo was also used in black propaganda by terrorist supporters on social media, which in reality reminds one of more than 21,000 children killed since 2011 by the Assad regime.
Even the dead bodies of children who died in chemical attacks by the Assad regime in Eastern Ghouta in 2013 were being used as part of the dirty lies of the PYD/PKK terror group supporters.
Children: Biggest war victims
A report released in November 2017 by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said at least 21,631 children had been killed by the Assad regime during attacks in Syria since 2011.
In another report, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said the Assad regime had carried out more than 200 chemical attacks since the first one in Homs’ Al-Bayyada district on Dec. 23, 2012.
The PKK terrorist group has given instructions to its supporters to post fake images online in an attempt to tarnish Turkey's ongoing Afrin operation.
Disinformation about the Turkish military began soon after Turkey launched the operation, with supporters of the PYD/PKK terrorist organization posting fake and distorted photographs on social media and falsely claiming they were from Afrin.
All the claims were false and the pictures were actually taken long before Operation Olive Branch even began.
On Jan. 20, Turkey launched the operation along with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to clear PYD/PKK and Daesh terrorists from Afrin, northwestern Syria.
According to the Turkish General Staff, the operation aims to establish security and stability along Turkey’s borders and the region as well as to protect Syrians from oppression and cruelty of terrorists.
The operation is being carried out under the framework of Turkey's rights based on international law, UN Security Council resolutions, its self-defense rights under the UN charter, and respect for Syria's territorial integrity, it said.
The military also said only terror targets were being destroyed and that "utmost care" was being put on avoiding harming civilians.
Reporting by Fatma Esma Arslan:Writing by Seyit Ahmet Aytac
