Turkish ground troops enter Syria

HASSA, Turkey, Jan 21 (AFP): Turkish ground troops entered Syria on Sunday to push an offensive against Kurdish militia as France warned the operation risked harming the international fight against jihadists.

Turkey on Saturday launched operation "Olive Branch" seeking to oust from the Afrin region of northern Syria the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) which Ankara considers a terror group.

But the campaign risks further increasing tensions with Turkey's NATO ally the United States-which has supported the YPG in the fight against Islamic State jihadists-and also needs at least the tacit support of Russia to succeed.

France's defence minister sounded the sternest Western warning to Turkey since the start of the offensive, saying it risked harming the campaign to crush Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said troops crossed into the YPG-controlled region in Syria at 0805 GMT, the Dogan news agency reported.

Turkish artillery and war planes pounded YPG sites around Afrin and total of 153 targets, including YPG refuges and weapons stores have now been hit, according to the army.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said the Turkish troops, whose number was not specified, were advancing alongside forces from the pro-Ankara rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and were already five kilometres (three miles) inside Syria.

In his first comments on the offensive since it began, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed hope the "operation will be finished in a very short time" and vowed "we will not take a step back".