The offensive, dubbed “Euphrates Shield”, was meant to “strengthen Turkey’s border security by clearing away terrorist groups, and support Syria’s territorial integrity”, according to a report by Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu.
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Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy since the 1980s, but the YPG is backed by the USA as one of the most effective forces battling IS.
Backed up by USA drones and American military advisers, Turkey on Wednesday launched a major military incursion across the border into neighboring Syria, deploying special operations ground forces and tanks while simultaneously launching airstrikes targeting Islamic State strongholds.
The second and, for Turkey, the more important mission, is to make sure that its allies in the FSA – Arabs to a man – take the town and not Kurd forces from the YPG (People’s Protection Forces).
Jarablus lies along the west bank of the Euphrates River, less than a kilometer from Turkey.
But Biden’s comments put Washington and Ankara on the same page on limiting the advances by the United States’ other main ally in the conflict, the Syrian Kurds.
Saleh Muslim, head of the Kurdish PYD, wrote in a tweet that Turkey was entering a “quagmire” in Syria and faced defeat there like Islamic State.
If needed, the official said, American warplanes are prepared to provide air support for Syrian rebels as they move on Jarabulus. Turkey is demanding that Washington quickly extradite a USA -based cleric blamed for orchestrating last month’s failed coup.
Turkey has vowed to fight IS militants at home and to “cleanse” the group from its borders after a weekend suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in southern Turkey killed at least 54 people, many of them children. Turkish officials have blamed the Islamic State for the attack.
It based its report on unnamed military sources.
Daesh is an Arabic name for Islamic state, while PYD refers to the USA -backed Syrian Kurdish fighters.
White and grey plumes of smoke rose from atop hills in northern Syria, Turkey’s CNN Turk television showed in footage broadcast live from the Turkish town of Karkamis across the border.
The Syrian Kurdish militia YPG attempted to retake Jarablus previous year, but were reportedly prevented from doing so when Ankara threatened to intervene.
Turkey feared a Democratic Union Party (PYD)-controlled strip along its entire border with Syria after US-backed Syria Defence Force (SDF) took the town of Manbij from IS earlier this month.
Ahmad al-Khatib, a Syrian opposition media activist embedded with the rebels who crossed into Syria, said some 1,500 opposition fighters were involved.
Ankara is anxious about the growing influence and power of the group, which it claims has links to Kurdish insurgents in southwestern Turkey. It was seized by the Kurdish-led group known as the Syria Democratic Forces, or SDF.
FSA rebels have been gathered at the border for days in readiness for the green light from Ankara to launch the attack.
Several analysts have complained that neither Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump has a policy to deal with the Syrian civil war.
The incursion – which also involves special forces – came hours after Turkish jets started pounding targets in northern Syria and shortly before Vice President Joe Biden’s arrival in the country for a planned visit.
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In a statement reported by state-run news agency SANA on Wednesday, the government says that “any move to combat terrorism on Syrian territories should have been coordinated with the Syrian government and army”.
