Turkish-backed rebels on Sunday cleared Islamic State fromTurkey’s Syrian border, securing a 90 km (55 miles) corridor and marking a substantial gain in Ankara’s plan to drive out Sunni militants and stop the advance of Syrian Kurdish fighters.
Advertisement
The army said on Tuesday that the ISIL attack took place in the Wuquf village, south of al-Rai, where Turkish tanks opened a second front in their Syria operation at the weekend.
By nightfall, Syrian rebels backed by the Turkish forces seized seven villages from the Islamic State, according to local journalist Ahmad al-Khatib.
The town had changed hands multiple times during the past months in battles with the IS, Xinhua news agency reported.
In an exclusive interview with Trend, Armagan Kuloglu, a retired lieutenant-general of the Turkish armed forces and expert on national security, said Turkey can launch new operations against PYD in the city of Afrin in northwestern Syria as a lever of political pressure.
Monitors too confirm the presence of ISIS militants has come to an end on the Turkey-Syria border.
Turkey’s incursion into Syria adds a further layer of complexity to the country’s unrelenting five-year civil war, which has devastated the country, cost hundreds of thousands of lives, sparked a refugee crisis and drawn in regional and world powers.
Turkey considers the Democratic Union Party and YPG terrorist organizations and U.S.is trying to cease violence between Turkey and the Kurds.
The return of control over the border could significantly improve the position of allied Syrian rebels, who with the support of Turkish forces had already seized the strategic border town Jarablus from ISIS on August 25.
The question of the Kurdish militias has complicated cooperation between Turkey and the United States, NATO allies and partners in their fight against ISIS in Syria.
“We will never allow the formation of an artificial state in the north of Syria”, he told a crowd in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
But Turkey’s operation was focused just as firmly against US -backed Kurdish forces, which it fired at last week and which it insists must withdraw to east of the Euphrates river.
Turkish tanks, special forces and insurgent clients have seized a 91km belt of territory, 3-4km deep, running from Jarablus to Azaz.
Advertisement
“Many of the groups considered acceptable by the US have actually affiliated with the Nusra Front, while the Nusra Front is using them to avoid being attacked”, Ryabkov told Russian media, citing a longstanding complaint of his government.
