Turkey’s offensive into Syria began on Wednesday, supporting its rebel allies with Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes.
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At least 35 civilians were killed Sunday by Turkish shelling against a town controlled by Kurdish-led groups in northern Syria, a monitor group reported. Turkish authorities blamed Kurdish militia for the death.
Anadolu, Turkey’s official press agency said Turkish air strikes killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” and destroyed five buildings used by the fighters in the Jarabulus area.
The militants fled the town without putting up a fight.
Kurdish fighters belonging to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) put a YPG flag on the door of the central prison in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakeh on August 23, 2016, after they agreed to a truce with regime forces.
It fears Kurdish fighters gaining an unbroken strip of territory along its border, which would be a huge boost to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a banned Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy in Turkey.
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Turkish backed Syrian rebels seized Jarablus this week after a lightening air and ground offensive.
It is not yet clear whether the two reports relate to the same incident.
The increased tensions between the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon-backed Syrian rebels and Kurdish forces threaten to take resources and attention away from the campaign against the Islamic State.
“We will fight against the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria’s Jarabulus, Iraq’s Bashiqa and, if it is necessary, in other places”.
The militias have said there are no Kurdish forces in the area.
“Armed groups supported by Turkey have established control over the villages of Balaban, Amarna and Dabas, south of Jarabulus”, the source said.
Ankara says that the YPG has failed to stick to a promise to return across the Euphrates river after advancing west this month despite guarantees given by US Vice President Joe Biden on a visit to Ankara on Wednesday. The YPG insists those areas are part of their own terriritoty, and there’s no way it will pull out.
The coalition-supported SDF Jarabulus Military Council said air strikes struck homes and killed civilians in the town, calling it “a unsafe escalation that threatens the fate of the region”.
Turkish-backed fighters will move south of Jarablus, toward Manbij and beyond, he said.
On Saturday, there were reports that suspected Kurdish militants fired four rockets at Diyarbakir Airport in southeast Turkey. Turkey’s incursion last week pre-empted the Kurds from seizing the town. Tawil said: “Our battle targets three main parties: ISIS, the Syrian regime and forces from the Democratic Union Party”.
Turkey’s offensive against the YPG and its allied force puts Ankara at odds with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally the United States, which sees the group as an effective Syrian ally against the Islamic State group, further complicating Syria’s five-year-old civil war.
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“We will continue until we uproot this terror organization”, Erdogan told the rally.
