Additionally on Friday, Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that a terrorist group attacked several military zones held by the Syrian army in Juber neighborhood, east of Damascus, in breach of the nationwide ceasefire.
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Small numbers of US special operations forces for the first time are accompanying Turkish government forces and their Syrian opposition partners fighting Islamic State militants inside Syria, military and administration officials said Friday. So far, Turkey has secured a narrow strip of land along its border.
“Up to now 900 sq km of area have been cleared of terror elements as part of Turkey’s operation”, he said. Clearing Islamic State from border areas west of the Euphrates river could seal the Turkish frontier and allow allied forces to speed up planning of a major offensive on Raqqa, the capital of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate.
Turkey has declared areas west of the Euphrates river off-limits to Kurdish forces in Syria, and on Monday, Erdogan served notice that Turkey will not let Syrian Kurds link areas they control along his country’s 566-mile (911 kilometers) border with Syria.
However, the five or six USA military personnel were then forced to withdraw towards the Turkish border after Syrian rebels protested against their presence in the town, the source said.
The Turkish military launched Operation Euphrates Shield on August 24 to improve security, support coalition forces, and eliminate the terror threat along Turkey’s border using Free Syrian Army fighters backed by Turkish armor, artillery, and jets.
It was U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish fighters – whom Turkey considers terrorists – that apparently motivated the protests in al-Rai on Friday, according to Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a think tank. “We will go there and stop (DAESH) from being a threat to us”, he said. It said the airstrikes were “on objective and planned in advance”, and killed dozens of Syrian soldiers.
Ankara’s challenge now is to turn the fractured Free Syrian Army into a coherent force as a counterweight to the YPG.
“I am pained and disappointed that a United Nations convoy has yet to cross into Syria from Turkey, and safely reach eastern Aleppo”, U.N. Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien said in a statement.
Erdogan has frequently castigated the United States for its support of the YPG.
“U.S. personnel operating with Turkish forces and Syrian opposition forces will provide the same train, advise and assist support they have been providing to other local partners in Syria fighting ISIL”, Davis said. He’s also had to swallow USA support for Syrian Kurdish rebels whose separatist aims he deplores.
Videos posted online showed a number of pickup trucks, with what appeared to be American special forces inside, departing the town to a chorus of anti-US chants by fighters.
The decision to work with the Turks in northern Syria comes after a contentious two months in Washington’s relationship with Ankara, a tension that was sparked in July with an attempted coup in Turkey.
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Erdogan made the comments at a news conference in Istanbul before departing for NY, where he is due to address the United Nations General Assembly.
