Turkish tanks stationed near the Syrian border, in Karkamis, Turkey, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016.
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Operation Euphrates Shield aims at improving security, supporting coalition forces, and eliminating the terror threat along Turkey’s border through FSA fighters backed by Turkish armor, artillery, and jets.
The Islamic State group’s Aamaq news agency said the “martyrdom” attack occurred in the village of Kuliyeh, west of the Syrian border town of Jarablus, which the rebels captured from the IS last week.
The defiant rhetoric is likely to set back USA expectations of a halt in the fighting between Washington’s two allies in the region, both of whom are also fighting the Islamic State group in Syria.
Turkey’s 10-day-old offensive, its first major incursion into Syria since the war started five years ago, has alarmed the West.
The official Anadolu News Agency said that “with this new phase of the operation, the Azaz-Jarablus line is expected to be cleared of terror elements”. Since then, rebels have been seizing villages along the Turkish border near Jarablus and the western Cobanbey district from IS, reports Anadolu.
The Turkish Armed Forces responded to the rockets with howitzers, striking two weapons pits and bunkers, and “destroying the locations and the Daesh terrorists there”, Anadolu said, referring to IS by an Arabic acronym.
But a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would continue to attack USA -backed Kurdish militias inside Syria.
Turkey on Wednesday vowed to keep attacking a US -backed Syrian Kurdish militia inside Syria, saying it will never negotiate with what it considers to be a “terror organization”. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the PKK, which Turkey and its allies consider a terrorist organization.
The U.S. has called on both sides to stop fighting each other and focus on defeating the Islamic State group, hoping to halt days of clashes between a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally and a Kurdish force that has proven to be highly effective against IS.
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He reiterated Turkish calls that Washington has to live up to its assurances that the Syrian Kurdish forces withdraw east of the Euphrates and that the pullout immediately takes place.
