The diverse conflicting sides include: Hezbollah, Iran, Islamic State (ISIS), Israel, Jordan, Kurdish fighters, Lebanon, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, assorted terrorists from around the world, Syria, Syrian opposition groups, Turkey, the United States, and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation states.
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A statement issued by the Kurdish authorities in Afrin said the attack was a provocation by the Turkish army to “ignite the fire of war”.
While Washington says Turkish attacks on Kurdish-aligned militias damaged a coalition fighting the IS, Russia said Ankara’s southwards push could complicate global efforts to reach a peace deal.
Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria and seizure of Islamic State-held Jarablus on the Turkey-Syria border, pre-empted the town’s fall to advancing US-backed Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters of the US-ba-cked Syrian Democratic Forces.
Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Nurettin Canikli, told the media that Turkish forces had so far killed a combined total of 110 ISIS and Kurdish fighters.
“Obama wants to do some things together concerning Raqqa in particular”, Erdogan told reporters on his plane that returned early on Tuesday from a summit of G20 leaders in China, where he met Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders. “I said there would be no problem from our perspective”. In remarks published on Wednesday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “Let our soldiers come together, whatever is necessary will be done”.
The incursion began August 24, days after a suicide bomber said to be linked to Islamic State killed at least 54 people at a wedding in the border city of Gaziantep.
Huseyin Rustem, a Syrian refugee who had been living in Turkey’s southeastern province Gaziantep province for over a year, said he was “excited to go home”. “The U.S. Government must not be tethered to Turkey’s sinking ship”. When the Turkish military recently took the town of Jarablus, ISIS forces withdrew without resistance, clearing the way for a clash between Turkish and Kurdish forces. Its previous reason for supporting the Syrian Kurds was simply that they were anti-Turkish at a time of extreme Turkish-Russian hostility in the wake of the shooting down of a Russian fighter-bomber by a Turkish jet on 24 November a year ago. Since then it has been nothing but retreats – and last week Turkey entered the ground war in Syria as well, to fight the IS and “other terrorists”. The de-escalation of tensions played a significant role in freeing Ankara’s hand to launch its Syrian operation.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter today said the “envelopment” of the IS-held city had already started and would be stepped up in coming months.
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Turkey’s intelligence unit, along with the military and police, is undergoing a revamp in the wake of a failed coup attempt on July 15.
