Syria war: Why Turkey's battle for northern Syria matters

Anyone who thought that the defeat of the Islamic State group would lead to an end or a simplification of the conflict in Syria was wrong.
Just look at Turkey's controversial offensive in Syria's northern region of Afrin, intended to extend Turkey's existing buffer zone inside the country and to evict Kurdish fighters from a broad swathe of territory.
The Ankara government sees the fighters as allies of Kurdish separatists inside Turkey. Indeed, despite various shifts in Turkish policy towards the conflict in Syria, opposition to Kurdish autonomy has been constant and absolute.
The Turks will simply not tolerate what they see as the threat posed by an autonomous Kurdish zone on their southern frontier. And they are clearly willing to use significant force to remove it.