Syrian rebels backed by Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes entered one of Islamic State’s last strongholds on the Turkish-Syrian border on Wednesday, in Turkey’s first major USA -backed incursion into its southern neighbor.
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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Turkey on Wednesday launched its first major ground assault into Syria since the country’s civil war began, sending in tanks and special forces backed by USA airstrikes to help Syrian rebels retake a border town from Islamic State militants.
In northern Iraq, Iran’s withdrawal of support for a Kurdish rebellion in the 1970s eventually left the Kurds at the mercy of Saddam Hussein, whose forces killed tens of thousands of them over the next two decades, including with poisonous gas. The Kurdish militias operating in northern Syria accuse Washington of abandoning them by cooperating with Turkey’s plan that they say is aimed at blocking Kurdish territorial continuity rather than fighting ISIS. ISIS frequently uses civilians as human shields, preventing them from leaving urban areas, to make targeting more hard.
“Here is our agreement with the US – the PYD, which is now in Manbij, must pull back to the east of the river”, Yildirim said.
A senior official with Syria’s largest Kurdish group suggested Turkey will pay the price.
The YPG has been a critical partner in the USA -led campaign against Islamic State in Syria. The village was under rebel control on Thursday, the rebel source said.
The SDF, a predominantly Kurdish alliance backed by the US-led coalition, had advanced to within a mile of Jarablus after driving Isis out of swathes of northern Syria in recent months.
According to the administration, Turkey does not distinguish the IS terrorists or the militants of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Turkish Foreign Ministry sources say that the US Secretary of State John Kerry, has told the Turkish Foreign Minister in a call that Syrian Kurdish fighters are now retreating to the east of the Euphrates.
Defence Minister Fikri Isik said preventing the Kurdish PYD party – the political arm of the YPG – from uniting Kurdish cantons east of Jarablus with those further west was a priority. “They can not, will not, under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment”.
Washington is also helping ensure Kurdish fighters further south do not provoke a conflict with Turkish forces by moving north toward Jarabulus, the official said.
The rebels encountered nearly no resistance from Islamic State fighters, who fled ahead of the advancing force, according to rebel commanders in the area. Ankara maintains that the Syrian Kurdish militia is linked to Kurdish rebels waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.
Biden is in Turkey in an effort to help improve relations strained by the country’s coup d’etat attempt last month.
Turkish forces, led by tanks, moved into Syria a day earlier in an operation to sweep Islamic State jihadists from the Syrian-Turkish border.
The Jarabulus operation proceeded at lightning speed with the town captured from IS just 14 hours after it was launched.
Those goals are not new, but recent developments have made achieving them even more urgent and important, according to US officials. Seif Abu Bakr, a commander with the Faylaq al-Sham rebel battalion. The YPG insisted it was up to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to decide if they will abandon Manbij.
Biden made it clear that the United States supports the Turkish presence in Syria.
Biden’s threat could significantly curb the Kurds’ ambitions, which have been fueled by the support they have received from the U.S military.
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Now that Turkey has entered the ground war and invaded Syria, it could likely find itself fighting on multiple fronts: ISIS, Kurdish militia and even the Syrian government in Damascus, which denounced Turkey’s incursion as “aggression” and a “blatant violation” of Syria’s sovereignty.
