BEIRUT (AP) – Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria say Turkish airstrikes hit bases and residential areas on Saturday near Jarablus, a town seized by Turkey-backed rebels earlier this week.
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Ankara has said that the offensive it began in Syria is as much about fighting Isis as it is about preventing Kurdish forces from making territorial gains in Syria along the Turkish border.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday Turkish warplanes had struck areas north of Manbij, a city south of Jarablus captured by Kurdish-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces in August in a US-backed operation. In this fight, Turkey has enlisted the aid of rebel groups in Syria they and the United States has been supplying.
There was no immediate comment from USA officials about the escalation of fighting between the two sides, both of which receive American military support, the WSJ said.
The Anadolu Agency said two Turkish tanks in the Syrian town of Jarablus came under rocket attack on Saturday from Kurdish militants.
The campaign marked the first outright military intervention of the Turkish army in the quagmire of the Syrian war.
Ankara wants to force the Kurds to withdraw to the east of Euphrates River, stopping short of establishing a corridor to link two Kurdish-led areas in north-western Syria.
Turkey has long suspected the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, of being linked to Kurdish insurgents in its own southeast, which it labels as a terror group.
The Hurriyet daily had reported earlier that the Turkish armed forces had 50 tanks and 380 personnel on the ground in Syria after three days of operations.
Turkish tanks head to the Syrian border, in Karkamis, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016.
On Sunday, Turkish forces ramped up their offensive against pro-Kurdish forces near a town wrested back from IS this week by Turkish-backed Arab rebels.
ANHA, the news agency of the Kurdish semi-autonomous areas, said the town of Beir Khoussa, around nine miles south of Jarabulus, has “reportedly lost all its residents” following the bombardments on Sunday. A further 15 were killed in an air raid targeting a farm near the village of al-Amarna.
Yesterday, the first Turkish casualty in the operation was flown home from Gaziantep for burial in his home province of Duzce on the Black Sea.
There was no immediate comment from the Syria Democratic Forces, the USA -backed Kurdish-affiliated forces.
Four local fighters were also killed, the UK-based Observatory reported.
“Our forces entered the last areas held by Daesh in Sirte: district number one and district number three”, a spokesman for the pro-GNA forces said yesterday, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
In a separate incident Saturday, Kurdish militants fired four rockets at the airport in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, without causing casualties, the Dogan news agency said.
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The attack on Bab al-Nairab, a Syrian suburb named after one of the city’s ancient gates, took place in waves, activists said.
