An AFP photographer in the village of Karkamis on the Turkish side of the border watched six Turkish tanks roll over the frontier into Syria on Saturday.
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Turkey’s warplanes roared into north Syria at daybreak and its artillery pounded what security sources said were sites held by Kurdish YPG militia, after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce overnight fighting around villages.
The Jarablus Military Council is supported by the USA -backed and Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces.
The media office of the Turkish-backed Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group said the Syrian rebels were backed by Turkish tanks.
Turkey in the past had allowed Islamic State militants to move back and forth across its border as part of Ankara’s effort to unseat Assad, but last week’s Turkish offensive represents a commitment to driving the IS militants away from the border – where several of the group’s key supply and smuggling routes were located – after Islamic State mounted several mass-casualty attacks on Turkish soil.
A Turkish army tank stationed overlooks the Syrian border, in Karkamis, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016.
Turkey, he said, also is determined to “uproot” the Syrian Kurdish group, calling it a terrorist organization.
Turkey’s state news agency, citing military sources, said the Turkish military joint special task forces and coalition aeroplanes targeted an ammunition depot and a barrack and outpost used as command centres by “terrorist groups” south of Jarablus on Saturday morning.
Another 20 were killed and 25 wounded, many seriously, in Turkish air strikes near the town of Al-Amarneh, it said.
On Saturday, clashes erupted for the first time between Turkish forces backed by tanks and pro-Kurdish fighters in the town of Al-Amarneh, also south of Jarabulus.
The rocket fire came from members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Anadolu said.
Turkey, which has more than 20 million Kurds in its southern region, has long opposed any expansion of Kurdish influence near its border, fearing the threat to its territorial integrity.
Speaking at a rally in the border town of Gaziantep, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his military is committed to fighting terrorism in Syria and Iraq. The US is also allied with Syrian rebels fighting Assad and Islamic State but who have also fought against the Syrian Kurds.
Anadolu said that the Turkish army responded to the rocket attack by shelling PYD targets in Syria, without giving further details.
YPG leaders say they have, but their units play an advisory role to the SDF and it is not clear if any of their forces remain west of the Euphrates.
Global powers have been pushing for 48-hour humanitarian ceasefires in the embattled city and UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has urged warring parties to announce by Sunday whether they will commit to a pause in the fighting.
The FSA is now in full control of the city.
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Hundreds of fighters and their families were bused north into rebel-held territory in Idlib province.
