On 9 October the Turkish army launched a military operation against northern Syrian areas held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Operation Peace Spring is intended to re-establish Turkish control over Syrian areas bordering Turkey, including the cities of Ras Al Ain and Tell Abyad to allegedly create a “safe-zone” that would allow the return of Syrian refugees currently in Turkey, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The operation took place just after President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from the region, leaving their Kurdish allies vulnerable. The People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia, declared that countering the offensive would require the mobilisation of all their military personnel, affecting their guard over the 11,000 ISIS prisoners throughout northern Syria. International reactions to the action have ensued quickly. The EU has called on Turkey to “immediately stop its unilateral military actions”. Egypt has called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League to discuss what it considers “a blatant aggression”. The current five European members of the UN Security Council have requested a meeting on Thursday to discuss the situation. For its part, Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone call with Erdogan where they agreed to “not damage the overall efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis”. On January 2018, the Turkish army already launched the Operation Olive Branch against the Kurdish canton of Afrin in order to create a 30-km wide security corridor between the Turkish border and Kurdish areas in northern Syria. The military campaign resulted in several thousands of casualties and the displacement of over 167,000 civilians.