A member of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the border town of Jarablus in Syria.
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Turkey’s incursion helped the rebels take Jarablus from the Islamic State group, but clashes subsequently broke out in the area between Turkish and Kurdish forces – both US -allies.
The Pentagon denied reports it was monitoring a cease-fire but said Turkish forces had moved to the west, while Kurdish forces had moved east of the Euphrates River, per the insistence of Turkish and US authorities.
While Turkey and its allies consider the area a red line, the Kurdish group views it as an area they fought hard to get.
While the U.S. has accepted Turkey’s designation of the PKK as a terrorist organization, Washington has resisted extending the designation to other Kurdish militias based in Syria and Iraq, while Ankara has maintained there is no distinction between them.
There were no reports of clashes between Turkey and the Kurds on Wednesday, marking the third day of calm and suggesting that the USA had prevailed over its two allies to keep their distance.
And yesterday the group claimed to have killed dozens of troops and destroyed two tanks in suicide auto bomb and guided missile attacks. “It has been calm since yesterday on the Jarabulus southern front against SDF forces”, Ahmed Othman, a commander of the “Sultan Murad” faction told AFP-an account corroborated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It says casualties were inflicted but did not give figures.
Later in the day, Turkish jets struck four buildings in Kuliyeh and nearby Zaghrah, killing some militants, Turkish military officials said. A US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the Russian claim “a joke”.
Then there are the Kurds, who come from Syria, Turkey and Iraq.
Since then, the Turkish army with its allies have pushed further south, seizing a string of villages in areas controlled by militias loyal to the Kurdish-backed SDF, which drove Islamic State out of the city of Manbij this month with U.S. help.
Turkey has demanded the YPG cross the Euphrates river into a Kurdish-controlled canton in Syria’s northeast.
The Kurdish-backed Jarablus Military Council said in a statement it had agreed to a cease-fire with the Turkish military in a disputed area in north central Syria after lengthy consultations with the coalition.
Ankara claims Kurdish militias will continue to be targeted until they retreat east of the Euphrates.. The YPG says its forces withdrew from the area long before Turkey’s assault. Despite U.S. pleas for an end to the fighting, both sides have vowed to protect their respective interests in Syria, underscoring the limits of U.S. influence and how much the Syrian war is as much a contest of competing aspirations. Erdogan will discuss the issue during the G-20 summit in China, he said.
The Kurdish forces are widely seen as the most effective partner in the fight against the militants in Syria, and the Pentagon has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in arming and training their allies.
Sly reported from Beirut. Larry is our main news editor.
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Based in the UK, Larry is passionate about all things news and technology related.
