“Thank God, today, from Azaz to Jarablus, our 91-km borderline with Syria has been entirely secured.All the terrorist organisations were pushed back – they are gone”, he said in a televised speech, BBC reported.
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The spokesman from the rebels’ Sultan Murad Division said that the next phase of the operation would be to advance southward toward Al-Bab, the town where Turkish military officials believe Islamic State fighters may have fallen back and are holing up.
The Kurdish YPG militia, backed by the United States, has captured large swathes of territory, alarming Turkey that has vowed to hit the terrorist group harshly.
Islamic State jihadists were expelled from their last positions along the Turkish-Syrian border, Turkey said Sunday, as Syrian forces again laid seige to rebel strongholds in war-torn Aleppo.
This advance will cut of IS supply lines that it used to import weapons and fighters.
At a rally in Istanbul on Sunday, the co-head of Turkey’s Kurdish-rooted Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) denounced the incursion into Syria as an “invasion”.
“We are there with Euphrates Shield, we are there to protect our border, to provide for our citizens safety of life and property, and to ensure Syria’s integrity”, he added.
According to Anadolu Agency, the news comes 12 days after the Turkish army launched Operation Euphrates Shield, aimed at improving border security, supporting coalition forces, and eliminating the threat posed by terrorist organizations, especially Daesh.
The London-based monitoring group said “rebels and Islamist factions backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes” had taken villages on the border “after IS withdrew from them, ending IS’s presence. on the border”.
In a separate development, Syrian military forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad recaptured parts of Aleppo they lost to rebels, the BBC reported.
Al-Rai fell last week under the control of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a rebel group backed by Turkey, as the town had changed hands multiple times during the past months in battles with the IS. Airstrikes by the USA -led coalition have killed a number of the group’s most prominent founding members and leaders.
At least 15 ISIS militants were killed in the clashes, while the YPG lost four of its fighters and several others were injured. The extremist group, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq, is now surrounded from all sides by hostile forces.
Some Kurds have criticized Turkey for its role in Syria.
The more than five-year conflict has become increasingly complex, involving not only regime and rebels, but global backers on both sides, Kurdish forces, jihadists and now Turkey.
Obama said nothing about a crackdown after the July 15 coup attempt in which tens of thousands of people were arrested.
The U.S. and Russia struggled Sunday to keep alive negotiations to end the bloodshed between U.S. -backed Syrian rebels and Syria’s Russian-aligned regime.
“I’ve said all along we’re not going to rush”, Kerry told reporters.
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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.
