Turkish armed forces announced on Saturday (March 24) that they had taken control of all areas in the Afrin region during their Olive Branch operation in Syria.

The president of Turkish Red Crescent, Kerem Kinik, said in Afrin that his organization and other NGOs had been distributing food and aid in the city and the surrounding villages.

After seizing control of Afrin, the main town in a pocket of Kurdish-controlled territory in northwest Syria, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would also target a region stretching nearly 400 km (250 miles) east to the northern Syrian town of Qamishli.

Expanding Turkey's military campaign into the much larger Kurdish-held territory further east would risk confronting the troops of a NATO ally, the United States, that are deployed alongside a YPG-dominated force in northern Syria. Ankara considers the Kurdish YPG militia a terror organization.