Turkey had last week launched a cross-border offensive with the aim to drive off the jihadists from the area.
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Turkish strikes destroyed three buildings used by IS around the villages of Kunduriyah and Arab Izzah, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) west of the border town of Jarabulus, the army said in a statement.
Ankara says the Kurdish militia combatants in Syria have links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is prohibited in Turkey and fighting Turkish forces in the south-east of the country. Working with “moderate” and “vetted” Syrian rebel groups, Turkish forces swept into northern Syria-assisted in part by USA air power-and quickly took control of the border town Jarabulus.
Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies began the August 24 offensive by seizing Jarablus, a Syrian frontier town, from IS, before turning their sights on what the army said were YPG positions.
“Nobody can expect us to allow a terror corridor on our southern border”, he said. The YPG denied they were there.
On Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis estimated IS only retained control of about 25 kilometers of the border, east of Al-Rai.
Erdogan told a news conference early on Friday that the operation dubbed “Euphrates Shield” had been successful in clearing Islamic State and Kurdish YPG from a 400-sq-km (150-square mile) area.
The FSA, backed by Turkish armor, artillery and jets, has so far cleared 32 villages of DAESH since the launch of the operation and gained an area of over 400 kilometers wide on Turkey’s border, and almost 25 kilometers of depth into Syria.
Turkey and allied Syrian rebels have also fought US -backed Kurdish forces known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, around Jarablus.
Erdogan, however, dismissed claims that the Kurdish YPG had withdrawn to a Kurdish-controlled region to the east of the Euphrates River.
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The rebels advancing from Jarablus say they captured three more villages from the extremists on Saturday. “We are saying no they didn’t”. Turkey, he added, had sought the establishment of a “safe zone” in Syria but the idea had not received the backing of other world powers.
