The operation – named “Euphrates Shield” – began at around 4:00 am (0100 GMT) with Turkish artillery pounding dozens of IS targets around Jarabulus, the Turkish Prime Minister’s office said. They’ve now lost one of their remaining supply routes to transit weaponry and fighters in and out of the country. The Turkish state has waged war against the separatist group for more than 20 years. It has also occasionally shelled ISIS positions in northern Syria, but its last-known airstrikes against ISIS were in November past year.
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That followed a recent mortar attack on residential areas in Karkamis, a town on the Turkish side of the border.
Turkey wants to show it is serious about taking on IS, which has been blamed for a string of attacks inside the country – the latest a weekend attack on a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep that left 54 people dead, many of them children. In the afternoon hours, the fighters entered Jarabulus with nearly no resistance from ISIS, who fled the area.
The Kurdish forces were still present around the Syrian town of Manbij seized from IS earlier this month, which lies well west of the Euphrates, it added.
There may also be an internal reason for this offensive now.
It coincided with a crucial visit to Ankara by Vice President Biden, and it seemed meant to demonstrate that Turkey and the United States remain close allies in the war against the Islamic State, notwithstanding tensions that have strained their relationship since a failed coup attempt last month.
Inside Story – How is Turkey dealing with threat from Syria?
Turkey has continuously called for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad, putting Turkey at odds with the embattled leader’s main supporters – Iran and Russian Federation. Several hundred are now massed on the border, according to the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights.
But they also aimed to block the advance of Syria’s US-backed Kurdish militia.
“It is important that the terror organisations are cleansed from the region and for the region’s stability”.
It was the first time since the IS group declared a “caliphate” across Syria and neighbouring Iraq in June 2014 that the jihadists had given up an area under its control within just hours.
It sent Special Forces units and up to 12 tanks across the frontier and hit IS positions with artillery and air raids.
“The big surprise here isn’t Turkey moving into Syria, it’s that they’re moving into Syria with American help”, said Henri Barkey, director of the Middle East programme at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars.
How much is Turkey working with coalition partners?
Maher Ihsan, a Syrian journalist and political researcher, said that “the USA policy has always been about supporting all parties against all parties with the aim of making all parties weak to some extent”.
It also believes the PYD is linked to Kurdish militants who are fighting within Turkey.
Cooperating in a substantial effort to weaken ISIS – just as Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Ankara – is one way to overcome a troubled few weeks. Although the PKK is recognised as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the USA and the EU, Washington considers its Syrian branch the YPG to be an ally in the fight against DAESH. “They can not and will not, under no circumstances, get American support if they do not keep that commitment”, Biden told reporters at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in Ankara.
Rizk: Well, . Turkey now is now getting involved directly and out in the open. Manbij took weeks to clear, despite a ground offensive and hundreds of U.S. airstrikes. ISIS frequently uses civilians as human shields, preventing them from leaving urban areas, to make targeting more hard.
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But Wednesday’s assault was its first major ground incursion.
