Turkish forces have reportedly pushed Islamic State militants from areas along the Turkish-Syrian border, according to Turkish media.
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A spokesman for the YPG recently criticized Turkey, saying its claims of fighting the group west of the Euphrates River are a pretext to widen its occupation of the Syrian territory. Airstrikes by the US -led coalition have killed a number of the group’s most prominent founding members and leaders.
The LCC said Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army rebels captured the village of Tweiran, to the south of al-Rai, from IS on Sunday.
Turkey’s incursion into Syria adds a further layer of complexity to the country’s unrelenting five-year civil war, which has devastated the country, cost hundreds of thousands of lives, sparked a refugee crisis and drawn in regional and world powers.
Turkey and allied Syrian rebels have been fighting US -backed Kurdish forces known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) to prevent the Syrian Kurdish militias from taking more territory in northern Syria.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim made the announcement about Ankara’s military successes in a televised speech on Sunday.
Yildirim said criticisms of Turkey’s clashes with Kurds in Syria “are without foundation”.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with US President Barack Obama at the G20 gathering of world leaders in China, Erdogan said, “It is our wish that a terror corridor not be formed across our southern border”.
Turkey’s government has signaled that its offensive will not only target ISIS but also the Syrian Kurdish YPG, who are viewed as an equal threat.
Turkey’s announcement came a day after rebel forces ran through several villages seemingly absent of Islamic State militants.
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 war-torn Syria. The city has been contested since the summer of 2012.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wants to fully recapture divided Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war.
State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that troops have captured the Armament Academy and are “continuing their advance in the area to impose nearly a total siege on the gunmen in Aleppo”.
The city, which is Syria’s third-largest, is largely under government control, with only one neighborhood still held by rebels. The Observatory confirmed an explosive device went off but had no casualty figures.
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 whole areas are under complete siege”. The YPG, which is backed by the US-led coalition, had been gaining territory in the north of Syria.
It also required the Syrian government and Russian Federation to avoid bombing opposition-held areas – including where more moderate insurgent groups are operating close to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, previously the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front.
An agreement that would stop the fighting and allow more humanitarian deliveries looked set to be announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Hangzhou.
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The Turkish army launched on Aug 24 the “Euphrates Shield” cross-border operation to drive out IS and other militants through the FSA fighters, who are bolstered by Turkish weaponry, ammunition, artillery, and jets, Xinhua news agency reported. “I’ve said all along we’re not going to rush and we’re not going to do something that we think is less than what we believe is a legitimate opportunity to be able to try to get the job done”. A lot of things are clear. But Kerry emerged alone to say a couple of issues still needed to be resolved and the two sides would resume talks on Monday. Lavrov’s deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, said a deal was “close” but that Washington had to dissociate itself from the Nusra Front. US -backed Kurdish fighters in Syria are “PKK terrorists disguised as a different group”, he said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
