Pro-Ankara Syrian rebels took the village of Keklijah three miles (five kilometers) west of Jarabulus and two miles from the border, Turkish state media said, in the operation’s first reported military success.
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Ahmad al-Khatib, a Syrian opposition activist embedded with the rebels, said some 1,500 opposition fighters were involved.
Biden, the official said, will try to convince Turkey that the United States understands the trauma of last month’s coup attempt here. “We’ve made that clear to the Turks”.
An official with the Turkish government told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday that the YPG attempted to cross that line when the offensive was launched. “So I think we have put a lid on the Turks’ biggest concern”, the official said.
Turkey’s army backed by global coalition air strikes launched an operation involving fighter jets and elite ground troops to drive Islamic State jihadists out of a key Syrian border town.
She expressed her party’s support for the government and the military’s Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria, which was launched early Wednesday, when artillery and airstrikes were followed by Turkish tanks crossing the border to target Daesh and the PYD in support of the Free Syrian Army fighters.
The news agency said the operation aims to clear Turkey’s border of “terror organizations” and increase border security, as well as “prioritize and support” Syria’s territorial integrity.
Saleh Muslim, head of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), wrote in a tweet on Wednesday that Turkey was entering a “quagmire” in Syria and faced defeat there like Islamic State after its forces hit targets in northern Syria.
Ali added that rebels were now on the eastern and northern outskirts of the city, but were waiting for engineering crews to deal with any explosive devices deployed on the road, a signature tactic by the jihadist group.
Turkish artillery units and warplanes belonging to the coalition pounded the ISIS-held Syrian town of Jarablus early Wednesday.
The bombing of a wedding in Gaziantep over the weekend killed more than 50 people, many of them children, and Isis-linked militants have carried out attacks in Ankara and Istanbul, including one at Atatürk airport.
Following Turkey’s reconciliation with Russian Federation, the Turkish Armed Forces are now better able to respond to DAESH provocations without fear of repercussions from Moscow, which has tactical oversight over Syrian airspace.
The senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss USA planning, said that Biden would soft-pedal public reminders for Turkey to respect human rights and democratic norms in its response to the coup attempt – a reaction that has included the arrest of tens of thousands of Turks for allegedly supporting the failed insurrection led by a rump group of military officers.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasised the operation was also targeting Kurdish militia fighters strongly opposed by Ankara – but backed by the U.S. as a key ally against IS – who had also been closing in on Jarabulus.
In an interview with private NTV television, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said Turkey saw Jarabulus “as a national security matter”.
CNN Türk is reporting live from Karkamis, a Turkish town on the border with Syria.
The Syrian opposition in exile, however, welcomed the intervention.
On Tuesday, Cavusoglu’s pledged “every kind” of support for operations against IS along a 100-kilometer (62-mile) stretch of Syrian frontier.
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Turkey fears that the expansion of the YPG across Syria will only further embolden the PKK at home.
