Turkish forces and the Free Syrian Army entered the town of Afrin on Sunday, and proclaimed that they had established full control of the area after an eight-month campaign to drive out Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, Reuters reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said that Turkey and rebel forces had captured the town. The Syrian monitor said pockets of YPG militants had defied orders to withdraw, but the town had fallen to the Turks and rebels.

“The Afrin city centre is under control as of 8.30 this [Sunday] morning,” Erdogan said at a rally commemorating the Gallipoli campaign in World War I. “Most of the terrorists have already fled with tails between their legs. Our special forces and members of the Free Syrian Army are cleaning the remains and the traps they left behind.”

Ankara claims that Kurdish YPG militants are an extension of an insurgent group in Turkey, and has vowed to crush the “terror corridor” of YPG-controlled territory along Turkey’s southern border with Syria, Reuters said. Turkey had launched an offensive against the YPG in January. The United States backs the YPG as a partner in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Othman Sheikh Issa, an official from the Kurdish authority, raised the prospect of a guerrilla campaign against the Turkish and Free Syrian Army forces. “Our forces all over Afrin will become a constant nightmare for them,” he claimed.

A Whatsapp group operated by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces claimed that the attackers had destroyed a statue in Afrin, which it called a “blatant violation of Kurdish people’s culture and history”. Pro-Kurdish groups in Turkey appealed to world powers to pressurise Turkish and rebels to withdraw from Afrin, to “avoid a human tragedy”.