More than 300 Syrians were taken by bus out of a rebel-held suburb of the capital, Damascus, in an evacuation Friday under a deal struck with the government that ends a punishing 3-year-long siege, allows rebel fighters to leave and restores state control over the area.
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A Turkish army tank and an armored vehicle are stationed near the border with Syria, in Karkamis, Turkey, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2016.
The pro-Ankara rebels took Jarabulus from IS last week on the first day of an unprecedented Turkish offensive aimed both at IS and a US-backed Kurdish militia that had been leading the fight against the jihadists.
Washington sees the Kurds as a key partner against IS, and US airstrikes have helped a Kurdish-led militia known as the Syria Democratic Forces to seize a large swath of territory from the extremists in recent months.
Turkey’s state-run news agency says Turkish tanks have entered Syria’s Cobanbey district northeast of Aleppo in a “new phase” of the Euphrates Shield operation.
Washington says Turkish action aimed at the YPG, part of the US -backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition, risked undermining the broader goal of ridding Syria of Islamic State, which has attacked Western and Turkish targets. The YPG’s estimated 30,000 fighters make up the bulk of that coalition.
When asked about the reports, Turkish military sources said: “A group approached the border and attacked construction machinery, workers and soldiers on the border with stones”.
Turkey neither confirmed nor denied the claim, saying only it awaited the fulfillment of a Kurdish promise to the U.S.to retreat east of the Euphrates river “as soon as possible”.
While declaring Thursday that the YPG had complied with the withdrawal requests from Ankara and Washington, Mr.
Foreign interventions – particularly in conflicts as complicated as Syria – are rarely easy and confined to defined parameters. But he said the price of an indefinite Syrian operation will likely be very high.
In China, to attend the G20 meeting of world leaders, President Tayyip Erdogan said there should be no support for any terrorist organization – a reference to the United States’ backing of the Syrian Kurdish fighters.
During his visit to Brussels, Mr.
Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies have kept up their fight against ISIS, whose strategist Abu Mohamed al-Adnani was killed in an air strike Tuesday claimed both by the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and Russian Federation. The rebels advancing from Jarablus say they captured three more villages from the extremists on Saturday. Washington has supported the group in its battle against Islamic State but Ankara regards it as an extension of the PKK, the outlawed Kurdish militant group in Turkey.
“We agreed on a ceasefire with the Turkish state via the United states and the global coalition” that is fighting the Islamic State group, said Ali Hajo, spokesman of the Jarablus Military Council.
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“The US welcomes the overnight calm between the Turkish military and other counter-ISIL forces in Syria”, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said on Tuesday.
