By taking Jarablus themselves, the rebel groups would preclude an assault on the town by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish-dominated militias who on August 6 took the city of Manbij, 20 miles (30 km) to the south, from IS.
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In an interview with Sputnik, Kurdish movement expert Jordi Tejel, an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies of the University of Exeter, said that the Gaziantep bombing may be followed by a sort of a deal between Ankara and Daesh (ISIL/ISIS).
Sixty-six people were still in hospital, 14 of them in a serious condition.
But Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Monday said it was too early to verify the organisation responsible or whether the attack was carried out by a child.
A dual suicide bombing blamed on IS at a peace rally in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, in October killed 103 people.
“Daesh should be completely cleansed from our borders and we are ready to do what it takes for that”, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a news conference in Ankara, using an Arabic name for the group.
The Kurdish fighters are moving from the town of Manbij – which they recently freed from Daesh – toward Jarablus, another town held by the terror group.
Yet YPG positions north of Manbij has additionally attacked, Turkish TV reported.
Turkey’s fight against Kurdish groups linked to the banned PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), as well as the IS group has added another layer of complexity to the Syrian conflict and has met with severe criticism from opponents of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Please Wait while comments are loading. Turkey encouraged them to go through Turkish soil to launch the attack, in hopes they’ll get to the city before the Kurds, who are just to the south, can get there.
Fierce clashes erupted between the two sides over control of the northeastern province of Hasakeh last week, and Syrian warplanes bombed Kurdish positions for the first time, prompting the U.S.to scramble its jets to protect American troops in the area.
The Hurriyet daily said DNA tests were under way to ascertain the bomber’s identity, nationality and gender.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports rebel fighters were massing inside Turkey to carry out an offensive on the Islamic State-held Syrian town of Jarablus.
Almost 50,000 people have been killed in the fighting.
Turkey’s military bombed Islamic State and Kurdish targets across the border in Syria on Tuesday, state-run media said. The groom was among those injured, but the bride was not hurt.
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One guest at the wedding party, Emine Ayhan, lost four of her five children in the blast, Turkish media reported.
