A Turkish army tank stationed overlooks the Syrian border, in Karkamis, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016. Turkey on Wednesday sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels retake the key Islamic State-held town of Jara.
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Turkey’s military didn’t specify what the airstrikes hit, saying only that “terror groups” were targeted south of the village of Jarablus, where the clashes later ensued. The group claimed to have captured two Kurdish fighters.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency later said one Turkish soldier was killed and three more wounded in a rocket attack by Kurdish militia on two tanks taking part in the offensive.
“There have been reports that SDF fighters have blown up a Turkish tank”.
Turkish tanks and special forces rolled into Jarablus earlier this week, backed by U.S. air power and Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, to expel Islamic State militants from Jarablus – a strategic border town – and to stop Kurdish militias from taking the town and moving further west along the Turkish border.
The clashes underscore Ankara’s determination to push back Kurdish forces from along its borders, and curb their ambitions to form a contiguous entity in northern Syria.
“They fought very long and hard to take the city, and we want to make sure there’s a “hold force” in place to make sure that ISIL doesn’t reinfiltrate”, the official said. Ankara backed Syrian rebels to gain control of Jarablus last week. The Turkish military has bombed targets around the town, located 25 miles south of Jarabulus, apparently convinced that the Kurds have not followed through on their promise to leave or that they seek to return. Turkey considers the PYD and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia to be terror organisations.
“Our concern has been the fact that the YPG has a proven track record of forcibly displacing non-Kurds”, a senior Turkish official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity as per protocol.
And, a spokesman for a Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army group called the Sultan Murad Brigade said its fighters have seized a series of villages to the west of Jarablus.
The Turkish official said construction vehicles, protected by military vehicles, had started digging holes to build a wall at the border in the Kobani area, but denied any had entered Kobani or crossed the frontier.
The SDF’s Jarablus Military Council said air strikes struck homes and killed civilians in the village of al-Amarneh, calling it “a risky escalation that threatens the fate of the region”.
It vowed to stand its ground.
The Jarablus Military Council is supported by the USA -backed and Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces.
Turkey’s state news agency, citing military sources, said the Turkish Military Joint Special Task Forces and coalition airplanes targeted an ammunition depot and a barrack and outpost used as command centers by “terror groups” south of Jarablus Saturday morning.
Turkey’s government, which is fighting a Kurdish insurgency at home, has said the Syrian campaign launched this week is as much about targeting Islamic State as it is about preventing Kurdish forces filling the vacuum left when Islamists withdraw.
John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, said on Wednesday during a visit to Turkey that the YPG should withdraw east of the Euphrates, and that a refusal to do so would mean an end to Washington’s support for the group.
Despite consistent US calls to retreat, PYD units have been moving to the east of the Euphrates river, and the group has continued its offenses amid the conflict between Turkish-backed moderate opposition forces and Daesh terrorists. But the body is perceived by the Syrian rebels to be controlled by the Kurdish forces.
In Syria’s north-west, fighting continued to rage between Syrian government forces and rebels in the battered city of Aleppo, in spite of tentative plans for a 48-hour ceasefire.
Aleppo has been caught in a bloody circle of violence, with rebels and government forces each promising to unite the divided city.
It is Turkey’s first major military operation since a failed coup last month that caused thousands of members of its armed forces to be discharged amid global concern over wide-ranging purges.
Mohammed Khandakani, a hospital volunteer, said one of the injured told him a barrel bomb was dropped in the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood as people paid their condolences for children killed Thursday in an airstrike that left 11 children dead in the same neighborhood.
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The Britain-based group said regime aircraft had dropped two explosive-packed barrel bombs several minutes apart on the Maadi district of eastern Aleppo.
