Rebels backed by Turkey made major gains Sunday in northern Syria, expelling Kurdish-led forces from towns and villages as part of a determined campaign by Ankara to push the militants east of the Euphrates River.
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The Turkish army’s operation in Syria is aimed at giving people who fled the IS-controlled areas a chance to return home, Erdogan told a rally of his supporters in the southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep. It also condemned what it said was global silence regarding “Turkish occupation” of Syria. He said another village to the west also came under attack late Wednesday but said it was not clear if it was from Turkish-backed forces or from Islamic State militants.
The Jarablus Military Council, affiliated with the U.S-backed Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces, said the Turkish airstrikes marked an “unprecedented and unsafe escalation” that “endangers the future of the region”. But following the Turkish offensive, local forces with Kurdish fighters and backed by YPG advisers pushed their way north of Manbij, in a rush for control of Jarablus.
But some rebel groups have rejected the plan unless aid passes through opposition-held areas and the ceasefire applies to other areas of Syria under siege. But the problem has to be comprehensively handled at the European Union level.
At least 35 civilians were killed, according to activists.
An agreement was reached on Thursday to evacuate around 4,000 civilians and 700 fighters from the besieged Damascus suburb of Daraya, ending one of the conflict’s longest stand-offs. Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) vehicles entered the area to prepare for the evacuation on Friday.
SDF spokesman Shervan Darwish said the airstrikes and shelling began overnight and continued Sunday along the front line, killing many civilians in Beir Koussa and nearby areas.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held telephone talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, discussing the situation in Syria.
The statement said the two leaders emphasised the need to fight “all terror groups” in Syria, including Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
Along with the one soldier killed, three others were injured. Photographs showed a large three-storey building reduced to its concrete shell, with no walls or windows, surrounded by rubble.
Another 20 were killed and 25 wounded, many seriously, in Turkish air strikes near the town of Al-Amarneh, it said.
The YPG has been a highly-effective force fighting ISIL in Syria.
Kurdish fighters have been a key ally of the United States in the war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but the Turkish government views those fighters – the People’s Protection Units in Syria, also known as the YPG – as an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a pro-separatist group that Turkey has been fighting for years.
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Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the Syrian Kurdish militia’s goal is to carve out a separate state – a “dream” he insists “they will never achieve”.
