Wounded people were taken to hospitals in Turkey’s southern province of Gaziantep, which lies across the border from Jarablus, same hospital sources said. And the countries sharply disagree over Syria’s Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its main enemy in Syria, and the United States sees as its most effective ground partner against the Islamic State.
Advertisement
Turkish hesitation would allow Islamic State and Kurdish “terrorist organizations” to settle there, Erdogan said. “But at this stage we have to show our presence in the region”, he said.
“Obama wants to do some things jointly concerning Raqqa”.
Life is slowly returning to normal for a group of almost 300 Syrians who have returned to Jarablus, a town previously under the control of Islamic State.
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.
Some of the several hundred IS fighters who took part in the battle of Sirte, in Libya, survived the defeat, as well as fighters in the lost battles of Mosul in Iraq and Manbej, Alrai, Jarabulus and other communities near the Syrian-Turkish border, he said.
The American official noted that Turkish operation in Jarablus also prevented the movement of Daesh and foreign fighters between Syria and Turkey, stating that there is American-Turkish cooperation with the moderate Syrian opposition, including logistic and aerial support in Manbij and Jarablus.
Some of those wounded in the attack on the northern town of Afrin were civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that has researchers across the country.
Political analyst Alexander Mercouris has suggested Turkey is attempting to create a safe zone in northeastern Syria as a base for jihadi groups supported by Washington and Ankara. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy in Turkey since the 1980s.
Advertisement
Information for this article was contributed by Selcan Hacaoglu and Justin Sink of Bloomberg News and by Zeynep Bilginsoy of The Associated Press.
