A map forwarded by a second rebel source showed the Turkey-backed insurgents had advanced into Islamic State-held areas both to the south of Jarablus and to the west along the Turkish frontier.
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The suggestion, however, that military officers who were secretly plotting against the government all along had acted for more than a year to thwart its plans to intervene in Syria offers one possible new explanation for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s seeming reluctance to fulfill long-standing USA demands for Turkey to adopt a more active stance against the Islamic State in Syria.
The Turkish defence minister, Fikri Işık, warned the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia – which also had its sights on Jarablus – to move back east across the Euphrates or also face intervention from Turkey.
They were then followed by around 10 armoured vehicles.
Earlier Monday, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu reiterated that Turkey was determined to fight DAESH terrorists inside Turkey and in Syria, after a suicide bomber attacked a wedding party, killing at least 54 people, many of them children.
The YPG, a part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, has been a partner in the US -led campaign against the IS in Syria.
On Thursday morning, American officials confirmed that Syrian Kurdish leadership had begun to withdraw east. Though the US backs Syrian Kurds, Biden said they “must move back across the Euphrates River”.
Barzani landed in Turkey this weekend to discuss, among other concerns, Turkish investment in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq and the fight against the Islamic State.
“We support our North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey in protecting its border from ISIL terrorists, and struck ISIL targets near Jarabulus earlier today”, he wrote, using the United States government’s acronym for the IS group.
Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, said Turkey is trying to “block the ultimate creation of a contiguous zone of territorial control under the authority of the PYD”, using the acronym for the Democratic Union Party, the YPG’s political arm.
Turkish state media agency Anadolu confirmed Turkish forces fired upon the YPG after allegedly obtaining intelligence that Kurdish forces were advancing on the nearby city of Jarablus.
Earlier, a spokesman for the US-led coalition against IS tweeted that SDF fighters had moved east across the Euphrates from Manbij to prepare for “the eventual liberation” of the IS stronghold of Raqqa. However, the proposals were consistently resisted by the Turkish military, he said. Turkey’s military operations have one goal: to eliminate or neutralize the Kurdish movement, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Arman Navasardyan said, reports “Armenpress”.
America is making another attempt to persuade Russian Federation to work with the United States on resolving the Syrian situation.
Several rebel groups are taking part in the operation, fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.
The speed of the advance stood in stark contrast to the long, grinding battles it had taken for Kurdish forces to recapture towns from IS in northern Syria, such as Kobane and Manbij.
Mohammed Kenkeri, one of the displaced residents, said that he was happy to return to his hometown, and thanked Turkey for its support in clearing the region of Daesh. They are bombing us, and our citizens are dying, our citizens are scared.
The Turkish offensive, called “Euphrates Shield”, involves rebel factions, including Islamic brigades, who were brought from north-western Syrian, through Turkey, to the launching area.
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Battling IS militants in Syria, the US -backed Syrian Kurds have been able to seize almost the entire stretch of the border with Turkey in northern Syria. Such an eventuality, considering the reality on the land in northern Iraq, could make it very hard for Turkey to restrain secessionist moves within its own Kurdish population, or the emergence of a big Kurdish state on a territory carved out of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and perhaps (less likely) Iran.
