In a separate battle further east, rebels backed by Turkey drove ISIS militants from all areas they controlled along the Syrian-Turkish border, effectively sealing the extremists’ self-styled caliphate off from the outside world.
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Turkish forces backed by Syrian rebels say they have driven Daesh militants out of territory along the Syrian border with Turkey.
Islamic State used the area, northeast of Aleppo, to bring foreign fighters into its territories in Iraq and Syria.
“We will never allow the formation of an artificial state in the north of Syria”, Yildirim said in a speech in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, where he announced an investment programme to rebuild parts of the largely Kurdish region that have been destroyed by security operations.
Turkey’s operation in Syria began on 24 August and it has sent tanks and war planes to back up opposition fighters.
Sources also revealed that the Free Syrian Army, comprised predominantly of Syrian Arabs and Turkmen fighters, besides taking control of a number of new villages, also reached 24 kilometers south of the Turkish border and are now present in the Sucu Cayi region, west of the Euphrates River. The Turkey-backed rebels, primarily Ahrar al-Sham and a faction of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), have said they had only 1,000 – 1,200 troops in Jarabulus. The “Islamic State” (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh), the YPG and the PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.
State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that troops have captured the Armament Academy and are “continuing their advance in the area to impose nearly a total siege on the gunmen in Aleppo”.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the regime of Bashar al-Assad cracked down on pro-democracy protests.
In a press statement late Saturday, Turkey’s military said the FSA took control of 10 villages from IS, adding that the Turkish army struck 20 IS targets. After more than nine hours of talks in Geneva last week, the two said they had made progress and that only technical differences remained. The city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, is largely under government control, with only one neighborhood still held by rebels.
The US had hoped to align with Russian Federation to identify terrorist targets, including ISIS and the Nusra Front, a group formerly tied to al-Qaeda.
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Erdogan has repeatedly said that Turkey’s allies should not be making a distinction between Islamic State and the YPG as both groups pose a threat to Turkey.
