By Gulsen Solaker and Ellen Francis ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Pro-Syrian government forces entered Syria’s northwestern Afrin region on Tuesday to help a Kurdish militia there fend off a Turkish assault, raising the prospect of a wider escalation of the conflict. Soon after the convoy of militia fighters – waving Syrian flags and brandishing weapons – entered Afrin, Syrian state media reported that Turkey had targeted them with shellfire. The confrontation pits the Turkish army and allied Syrian rebel groups directly against the military alliance backing the government of President Bashar al-Assad, further scrambling northwest Syria’s already messy battlefield.
