Ankara sent tanks across the border last week to help Syrian rebels drive Isil out of the frontier town of Jarabulus, but Turkish officials have openly stated that their goal is as much about ensuring Kurdish forces do not expand their territory along Turkey’s frontier as it is about driving away jihadists.
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Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels entered Syria and seized Jarablus from Isis in an operation dubbed “Euphrates Shield”.
The military clashes between Kurdish and Turkish forces in Syria have put Turkey and the U.S. at odds as Washington regards Kurdish fighters as its most effective ally against IS forces in Syria.
A further 15 were killed in an air raid targeting a farm near the village of al-Amarna.
Four local fighters were also killed, the UK-based Observatory reported.
The coalition-supported SDF Jarabulus Military Council said air strikes struck homes and killed civilians in the town, calling it “a unsafe escalation that threatens the fate of the region”.
Jeb el-Kussa is located 14 kilometres (almost nine miles) south of Jarabulus, the IS border stronghold which Turkish-backed Arab rebels captured on the first day of the incursion.
Turkey said the dead were 25 “terrorists” from the YPG and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), state-run Anadolu news agency said.
But Turkey considers the YPG a “terrorist” group and vehemently opposes its attempts to create a contiguous autonomous zone along its border, fearing it could strengthen the Kurdish rebels fighting the state in southeast Turkey.
“For the issue of the PYD (Democratic Union Party) terror group in Syria, we have just the same determination”, he added, referring to the main pro-Kurdish party in northern Syria and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia.
The YPG’s senior command said in a statement that it was not engaging Turkish forces “despite the losses we suffer”.
Speaking at a rally in Gaziantep where the suicide bombing took place at a Kurdish wedding, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the “terrorists” are being “picked up one by one” by Turkey’s security forces.
Two Turkish F-16 warplanes struck six Islamic (IS) targets and a position of YPG in Syria on August 27, Turkish security sources told Reuters. In general, those U.S. special operations forces have close contact with their Turkish counterparts, and they rely on Turkey for their rear supply lines, according to people familiar with the situation. Since then, Syrian rebels have been pushing westward, chasing the Islamic State, as well as southward into areas controlled by forces aligned with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
The UN says it has “pre-positioned” aid to go to the city for some 80,000 people.
But some rebel groups have rejected the plan unless aid passes through opposition-held areas and the ceasefire applies to other areas of Syria under siege.
Opposition groups have repeatedly called for an end to regime sieges of rebel-held areas, accusing Assad’s government of using “starve or surrender” tactics.
The Homs Local Council appealed to the United Nations envoy to Syria to negotiate a truce for al-Waer, condemning the government’s “siege policy” that aims to force residents and fighters to surrender.
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“The Syrian army completely controls Daraya and has entered all of the town”.
