Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said it was “unacceptable” that United States troops had been seen in images taken by an AFP photographer wearing insignia of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
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USA advisors have been assisting the Kurds and other groups fighting the Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, but this is the first time U.S. troops have been documented taking part in the fighting on the ground against the Islamic State in an offensive manner.
The U.S. special operation forces photographed wearing Kurdish militia patches while operating in Syria have been instructed to remove the insignia from their uniforms, a U.S. military spokesperson said Friday.
“We advise them (US troops) to wear badges of Daesh (IS) or (Al Qaeda affiliate) Al-Nusra when they go to other parts of Syria and badges of Boko Haram when they go to Africa”, Cavusoglu said with angry sarcasm.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdish Workers’ Party, which it considers a terrorist group.
The pictures were taken on May 25 by an Agence France Presse correspondent, who quoted a Kurdish commander saying that USA soldiers are “present at all positions along the front”.
The SDF, mostly made up of Syrian Kurds and numbering at least 25,000 fighters, is fighting with a smaller element of Syrian Arabs, numbering perhaps 5,000 to 6,000. “They’re being sent there on a mission to be advising and assisting and supporting the forces that are fighting against ISIL on the ground”.
“In some areas they [IS] just retreat, and in other areas they stay to fight”, he told VOA via phone from Syria.
To date there are 3,700 USA trainers, advisers and security personnel in Iraq for the goal of fighting ISIS.
In the meantime, however, the Pentagon has forged ahead with a different alliance, with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is seen as a rival or worse by many Arab rebel groups.
The rebels complain they aren’t getting much support from the USA, which they described as a “dereliction of duty”, saying that they are debating whether or not to flee rather than simply wait for the inevitable rout from the much-larger ISIS force. But in recent days photos have shown them in locations that appear to be closer to the fight.
Some analysts therefore speculated when the photos first emerged Thursday that the Americans’ show of solidarity with the Kurds would further inflame tensions between the U.S. and Turkey.
Cook also faced a barrage of questions about whether or not the special operations forces were on the front lines, since in the past USA officials have stressed that American troops are not at the battlefront.
New Syrian Army fighters saw the suicide bomber hurtling through the desert toward them when the vehicle was two miles away, Tallaa said. The former USA official said the intent had always been to provide those trained under the program with anti-tank weapons, but Tallaa and another commander with the group said they did not materialize.
Asked about the men seen on the front line, USA defence officials did not dispute that they were American special operations forces.
Ankara has repeatedly said it makes no distinction between “terror “organisations, be it IS, the PKK or the YPG”.
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“Obviously, any special forces troops that we deploy into Iraq or Syria are going to be combat-equipped troops”, Rhodes said.
