Turkey, which is also battling Kurdish insurgents at home, sent tanks and troops into Syria on Wednesday to support its Syrian rebel allies.
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A Reuters witness in Karkamis, a Turkish border town, heard jets and artillery strike within Syria. The “Islamic State” (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh), the YPG and the PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.
And, a spokesman for a Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army group called the Sultan Murad Brigade said its fighters have seized a series of villages to the west of Jarablus.
The Syrian army said it was in complete control of the town, from which roughly 8,000 civilians were due to be evacuated.
Syrian activists say government airplanes have attacked a besieged neighborhood in the central city of Homs, including with incendiary bombs that killed two children and left one badly burned. One business owner in the district, who asked not to be identified due to security concerns, expressed his satisfaction about reopening his shop shutters once again.
But neither side gave pledges on getting much-needed aid into the city.
Meanwhile, a Turkish soldier was killed and three more wounded today in a rocket attack by Kurdish militia on two tanks taking part in Turkey’s military offensive in northern Syria, state media said. Most fighting so far has appeared to be with rebels aligned to the Kurdish-backed SDF rather than Islamic State.
The declaration comes a day after the evacuation of almost 5,000 residents and fighters from the suburb began.
Daraya was the last remaining rebel holdout in the region known as western Ghouta – and the closest to the capital.
Hundreds of fighters and their families were bused north into rebel-held territory in Idlib province, with other civilians transferred to government territory near Damascus for resettlement. United States leadership was concerned that there were not enough rebels to free Jarablus and surrounding areas. The group claimed to have captured two Kurdish fighters.
The Kurds have a strong presence and culture in northern Syria and southeastern Turkey.
Turkish airstrikes and artillery targeted the town of Bir Kousa in the countryside of the city of Jarablus in northern Syria, near the Turkish borders, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that his nation would continue its “operations against terrorist organisations” and repeated his pledge that he would approve reinstituting the death penalty if parliament backed it.
The strikes came on the fifth day of Turkey’s military operation to target so-called Islamic State (IS) militants and Kurdish militia inside Syria, dubbed Operation Euphrates Shield. The group said there was injuries but didn’t specify. The Jarablus Military Council, affiliated with the U.S-backed Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces, said the Turkish airstrikes marked an “unprecedented and unsafe escalation” that “endangers the future of the region”.
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However, the Turkish offensive has so far focused on forces allied to the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition that includes the YPG, an Observatory source said. Turkey says the Kurds must withdraw to the east of the nearby Euphrates River.
