The Kurds wrested it from the Islamic State earlier this month.
Advertisement
Turkey has vowed to continue the campaign until there is no longer a “terror” threat from its neighbour, likely to refer both to IS and to the Kurds. This while the Kurdish-led forces want to take al-Bab to open a corridor to the besieged town of Efrin [also known as Afrin] in northwestern Syria.
The tanks were hit in the area of the Syrian town of Jarabulus, which Turkish forces helped pro-Ankara rebels seize from Islamic State (IS) group militants on Wednesday, the Dogan news agency said.
Syrian rebels backed by Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes entered Jarablus, one of Islamic State’s last strongholds on the Turkish-Syrian border, on Wednesday.
The self-proclaimed Kurdish authorities in northern Syria said in a statement that the local fighters backed by Kurdish forces “destroyed two tanks and killed its crews” near the village of Al-Amarneh. Now their conflict could expand into new areas, as Turkey’s incursion transforms Syria’s military landscape.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a well-known activist group, said Kurdish forces and Syrian rebels engaged in skirmishes Wednesday night around several villages between Jarabulus and Manbij.
Meanwhile, security sources announced that two Turkish F-16 jets have launched raids on regions controlled by the YPG, which is part of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition.
Kurds dominate the powerful Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) faction. They are now pushing their way south. It said the fire hit targets south of Jarabulus.
But Turkey has been alarmed by the alliance’s success, enabling Kurdish groups to control of land stretching nearly the entire length of the Syrian border. “Those guys are here to serve Turkey’s agenda, not the Syrian revolution’s goals”.
The clashes were preceded by Turkish airstrikes against bases of Kurdish-affiliated forces and residential areas at Amarneh.
Hospital officials in rebel-held Aleppo say the death toll from the two barrel bombs dropped Saturday in the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood is likely to rise.
That offensive successfully ousted Islamic State jihadists from the city.
Russia’s position, according to Isayev, may cause criticism from Kurdish groups that Moscow supports diplomatically. “This is a pretty standard feature of coalition warfare”, he said.
At the White House Friday, Press Secretary Josh Earnest renewed USA arguments against a no-fly zone.
But President Tayyip Erdogan and senior government officials have made clear the aim of “Operation Euphrates Shield” is as much about stopping the Kurdish YPG militia seizing territory and filling the void left by Islamic State as it is about eliminating the ultra-hardline Islamist group itself. The call came despite Kurdish forces’ effectiveness in fighting ISIS on the western side of the river.
“We are for a united Syria”.
The fighting indicates Turkey is entering into a new and more unsafe phase in Syria four days into operation “Euphrates Shield”. Helped by Turkish forces, the rebels retook the town, which had been in IS hands since 2013, without a fight. Whether this is a goal of the current offensive remains unknown.
On Saturday, an AFP correspondent at the Turkish border village of Karkamis saw six more tanks crossing into Syria, adding to the dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops already in the country.
A source within northern Syria’s autonomous Kurdish region confirmed the clashes. “To stop the cross-border smuggling and to strangle the Kurdish administration”, said van Wilgenburg.
Advertisement
“Russia and Turkey would like at all costs to avoid incidents like the one that occurred in November 2015”, said Isayev.
