Turkey-backed rebels may extend their zone of control in northern Syria by pushing south and are now targeting the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.
Advertisement
Before traveling to NY to attend the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, Erdogan gave a press conference in which he supported the joint actions of his army and the armed group and said that the behavior of the U.S. officials is intensifying the problems in the country.
Erdogan said the Syrian opposition forces, backed by Turkish troops and tanks, are determined to advance toward al-Bab to clear the region of terror threats.
Clashes between Turkish-allied forces and the Kurdish YPG militia, a key US partner in the fight against Islamic State group, have caused tension between Washington and Ankara.
Cook said that senior Islamic State propagandist Wa’il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, known as “Dr. Wa’il”, was killed in a precision strike on September 7 near Raqa, the Syrian city that is the group’s de facto capital. The Pentagon has warned against the practice, but while Turkey seems placated enough to work directly with the USA on their assorted wars in Syria, the FSA for whatever reason will brook no cooperation, at least in between accepting huge caches of CIA-provided weapons.
However, these USA forces were not welcomed by opposition factions allied with Ankara, as they were kicked out of the city of Ar Rai, at the Turkish borders with northern Aleppo.
The rebel source said the U.S. forces had entered Al Rai, 2 km inside Syria, as part of that operation.
Davis said the Americans are providing the same training, advice and other assistance that USA forces have been providing to other Syrian opposition groups – such as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces – fighting the Islamic State in northern Syria. A rebel on video is heard saying: “We don’t accept USA soldiers to fight with us, we are Muslim and not Kuffar [unbelievers]”, one rebel said.
USA military officials say those troops were leaving the town after a routine meeting. “With the numerous successes coalition partnered forces have had in northern Syria, much of the population welcome the partnerships which have been established”, according to the written statement from the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, which oversees US -led operations against the Islamic State group on Syria and Iraq.
The decision to send the U.S. forces into northern Syria with the Turkish military came last week, one USA official said, shortly after a meeting between Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and President Obama during the G-20 summit meeting in China.
Erdogan’s announcement comes as a fragile cease-fire, brokered by the United States and Russian Federation and now in its seventh day, has mostly held despite numerous violations.
“The amount of shelling by rebel groups against positions of Syrian government troops and of residential areas is increasing”, said defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
Advertisement
Addressing the media in a press briefing in Washington, Kirby said that that is natural in the “Muslim world”.
