YPG vow guerrilla war against Turkish forces, to retake Afrin

Kurdish fighters who lost control of Afrin on Sunday vowed to fight back against the Turkish-backed opposition force now in control of the northwest Syrian city.

People's Protection Units (YPG) said in a statement that they would begin a campaign of guerrilla war against a combined Turkish and Free Syrian Army (FSA) offensive around Afrin.

"Resistance... will continue until every inch of Afrin is liberated and the people of Afrin return to their villages and homes," the statement read.

The Ankara-led force captured Afrin city on Sunday after a two-month campaign against the YPG in the mountainous region of Syria that borders Turkey.

The FSA force surrounded Afrin from three sides with more than 200,000 civilians fleeing the city.

YPG fighters also escaped before the Turkish-led force moved in but not before burning infrastructure and mining the city.

The Kurdish force said they will now begin a campaign of harrassing the Turkish and Syrian rebel forces around Afrin.

"In all of Afrin's sectors, our forces will become a permanent nightmare," the statement said.

"Our war against the Turkish occupation... has entered a new phase: a switch from direct confrontation to hit-and-run attack."

Turkey views the YPG as an off-shoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Ankara.