In this photo taken on August 31, 2016 and provided by the Turkish military on Monday, Sept. 5, 2016, army commanders, from right to left, Air Forces Com.
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Turkey and its rebel allies now control a 90-km stretch of land on the Syrian side of the border and are pushing south.
A group of 292 Syrians went home to the Syrian town of Jarablus on Wednesday, marking the first formal civilian returns from Turkey since the start of a Turkish-backed incursion into northern Syria, a Turkish regional official said.
Near-simultaneous bombings claimed by the Islamic State group struck in and around strongholds of the Syrian government and Kurdish troops today, killing at least 48 people in a wave of attacks that came a day after the militants lost a vital link to the outside world along the Syrian-Turkish border.
IS released a statement saying they used guided missiles to take out the tanks, alongside a suicide attack on Turkish-supported rebels in the region. Four others were wounded, it said. One of the wounded soldiers died despite efforts to save him, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
Two fighters from the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) were killed and two injured in the same area, the TAF added.
The territorial losses at the border were the biggest blow to the militant group, which also has suffered a series of recent battlefield setbacks elsewhere in Syria and in neighboring Iraq.
The fatalities are the first to be blamed on ISIL, also known as ISIS, since the launch of Turkey’s cross-border operation two weeks ago.
Turkey has been alarmed by U.S. support for the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia which Ankara sees as a “terrorist” group linked to its own Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has been waging a bloody campaign against the Turkish state.
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Turkish Army soldiers walking by tanks near Turkish Syrian border of Karkamis. Ankara conducted airstrikes against IS inside Syria after that.
