Turkey in the past had allowed Islamic State militants to move back and forth across its border as part of Ankara’s effort to unseat Assad, but last week’s Turkish offensive represents a commitment to driving the IS militants away from the border – where several of the group’s key supply and smuggling routes were located – after Islamic State mounted several mass-casualty attacks on Turkish soil.
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KARKAMIS, Turkey, Aug 27 (Reuters) – A group allied to Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it was bombarded by Turkish warplanes on Saturday, after Turkey’s military launched an incursion this week into northern Syria against both Islamic State and Kurdish forces.
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. The leader of one of the Turkey-backed rebel groups however told Reuters the rebels were battling the YPG on the outskirts of the village.
The state-run Anadolu news agency confirmed that the rebels were working to destroy explosives left behind by IS militants, with 20 different sets destroyed on Friday alone.
Senior Kurdish officials previously warned Turkey that it could enter a swamp, but Turkish officials said they would not leave northern Syria until their mission was cleared with the goal to prevent the Kurds from connecting their cantons of Kobane and Efrin in northern Syria [Rojava], and removing ISIS from the Turkish border after the Gaziantep attack that killed at least 50 civilians at a wedding last week.
The US supports Syria’s main opposition alliance and some other rebel factions.
Elsewhere in Syria, another group of residents was evacuated from the Damascus suburb of Daraya, part of a deal struck between Syrian rebels and the government following a grueling bombing campaign and four-year siege.
“With this aggression, a new conflict period will begin in the region”, it said. “We do not support an independent Kurd initiative”, Kerry said. But neither side gave pledges on getting much-needed aid into the city.
ISIL has controlled territory along the Syria-Turkey border since 2013.
Turkey has long accused the YPG, or the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, of being linked to Kurdish fighters in its own southeast.
Ankara says the YPG has failed to stick to a promise made by its United States allies that the militia would move back east across the Euphrates River.
The rocket fire came from members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Anadolu news agency said. Turkey on Wednesday sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels retake the key Islamic State-held town of Jarablus and to conta.
Tension has mounted in Syria’s Aleppo region in the past year between the U.S-backed Kurdish YPG force and its allies on one hand and Turkish-backed rebel groups on the other. Hurriyet daily reported that Turkey had 50 tanks and 380 personnel on the ground in Syria after three days of operations. Both Turkey and Kurdish rebels are USA allies.
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The pro-Kurdish fighters said earlier Turkey had for the first time carried out airstrikes on its positions. Some 200 soldiers from mechanized units and 150 Special Forces soldiers are involved in the operation, which is still ongoing after it secured its first aim of liberating the Syrian town of Jarablus from ISIL.
