Turkish forces and Syrian rebels have driven out the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group from its remaining territory along the Syrian-Turkish border, Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim had said.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Islamic State “has lost its link with the outside world after losing all border areas” with Turkey.
The advance took place little more than a week after Turkey launched the Syrian incursion, deploying tanks and air power to support the rebels, who swept into the border town of Jarablus.
The Euphrates Shield operation started on August 24 in the northern Syrian city of Jarablus when Turkish forces crossed into Syria under the pretext of targeting Islamic State positions along the border.
The YPG, which is backed by the US-led coalition, had been gaining territory in the north of Syria.
The establishment of such a corridor in northern Syria, which would strengthen the hands of Kurdish groups to launch a Kurdish state in the region, is the biggest fear of Turkey.
The border town of Jarablus, which Syrian rebels and Turkish forces recently recaptured from the terror group, is a critical location for supplies, money and fighters coming in and out of ISIS-held areas.
Since then, President Bashar al Assad’s army and its allies have been trying to take back the area.
After the government laid siege on Aleppo for the first time in July, the United Nations said that almost 300,000 residents were trapped in rebel-held neighborhoods, making it the largest besieged area in Syria.
In comments to reporters after meeting Obama, Erdogan reiterated that the Kurds are as much of a target of Turkey’s Syria intervention as the Islamic State.
There are about 250,000 civilians living in the city’s rebel-held areas.
Military officials from the United States and Russian Federation, which back opposite sides in Syria’s five-year war, have been meeting for weeks to try to work on terms of a deal.
Aleppo was once Syria’s economic powerhouse, but after anti-government protests began in March 2011, the city has been ravaged by an ongoing civil war.
ISIS has lost control of all territories on Syria’s border with Turkey, according to monitoring groups. Advances by the insurgents in recent days have brought them to within 10 km (six miles) of government-controlled Hama, the Observatory and insurgents say. The U.S. has designated the Nusra Front as a terrorist group, though some of its members fight alongside U.S. -backed rebels in Syria.
The US said it had targeted al-Adnani in an airstrike but could not confirm his death.
Turkish authorities are also building a wall to boost security along a stretch of its border with Syria, Anadolu reported. SANA said they discussed Syria’s war and ways of fighting terrorism.
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Information for this article was contributed by Zeynep Bilginsoy and Philip Issa of The Associated Press and by Benjamin Harvey, Simin Demokan, Taylan Bilgic and Ercan Ersoy of Bloomberg News.
