The United States has made it clear to the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed Kurdish and Arab alliance, that “we don’t and won’t support them going north, and they can’t without our air cover, so we’ve put a lid on them moving north”, he said. It is located 20 miles (33 kilometres) from the town of Manbij, liberated from IS by Kurdish-led forces earlier this month.
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He says “they can not will not under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment”.
The Turkish army began firing artillery rounds into Jarablus at around 0100 GMT and Turkish and USA warplanes pounded Islamic State targets with air strikes. It’s the last major town held by ISIS on the Syrian-Turkish border.
He said Ankara had choked on seeing the Syrian Kurds take from IS the strategic town of Manbij south of Jarabulus and well west of the Euphrates earlier this month. Turkey said they had to retreat after clearing it from IS.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry has condemned Wednesday’s operation, describing it as blatant violation of Syrian sovereignty, SANA news agency reported. Then, if there is a decisive and coordinated fight against terrorist organizations we can expect a success. He used the Arabic language acronym for IS. Turkish warplanes have been active in the skies above cities in northern Syria as part of US-led coalition air raids, but Wednesday’s incursion is the first confirmed instance of Turkish armor crossing the Syrian border. It says Turkish warplanes and artillery were also pressing ahead with their attacks against IS targets.
Hours after the start of the operation, rebels backed by the Turkish forces battled their way through several IS-held villages and entered Jarablus. The shelling was hitting ISIS, not Kurdish forces, he said.
Several suspects were detained and their addresses searched.
Turkey views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it has denounced as a terror organisation along with the European Union and the US.
Turkey has vowed to fight IS militants at home and to “cleanse” the group from its borders after a weekend suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in southern Turkey killed at least 54 people, many of them children.
A Syrian activist group monitoring the civil war says Syrian rebels who were amassed at the Turkish border have crossed into Syria as part of a Turkey-backed operation to liberate an Islamic State-controlled border town. NTV called it an “intruder mission” meant for “pinpoint operations” against IS in Jarablus. “I think the talks between Putin and Erdogan on the subject could be held and Russian Federation doesn’t mind the Turkish army carrying out an operation against Daesh”, Viktor Litovkin called on.
Turkey has been hitting targets inside Syria for three days following a mortar attack on residential areas in Karkamis, a town on the Turkish side of the border. It said clashes were taking place at the border.
It marked the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member’s most significant military involvement so far in the Syria conflict.
Biden’s visit comes at a testing time for Turkish-U.S. relations. The United States is asking for evidence against the cleric and asking that Turkey allow the extradition process to take its course.
“That was really unacceptable for Turkey and was additional motivation to get more involved in that part of Syria”.
Biden is scheduled to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala says Turkey launched the operation to free the IS-held Syrian town of Jarablus to safeguard its own security.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Kurdish fighters must return east of the Euphrates or Turkey would “do what is necessary”.
Meanwhile, the opposition Syrian National Coalition gave its support to the operation. He said he hoped the operation to clear Jarablus would be completed at the soonest, but did not provide a time-frame. “Until this threat is removed and the terror threat on our border disappears”. Karkamis lies just across the border from Jarablus.
Turkish tanks and warplanes backed by aircraft from the US -led coalition launched their first co-ordinated offensive into Syria to try to push the Islamic State (IS) group away from the border and prevent further gains by Kurdish militias, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
The operation is in line with the mandate for cross-border operations provided to the Turkish Armed Forces by parliament in 2014 and backed by the principles of self-defense in worldwide treaties.
The London-based Syrian Observatory also said the Turkish troops had entered Syria. There was no confirmation from Turkish sources.
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Turkish tank units and Syrian rebels backed by Ankara crossed into northern Syria to drive the jihadist militants out of the border town of Jarablus, the newswire said citing military sources. Hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters also joined the assault. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission. For the protection of AP and its licensors, content may not be copied, altered or redistributed in any form. Please see our terms of service for more information.
