The border town of Jarablus, which Syrian rebels and Turkish forces recently recaptured from the terror group, is a critical location for supplies, money and fighters coming in and out of ISIS-held areas.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that government troops captured the academy, adding that insurgents have launched a counteroffensive.
On Saturday, Turkey sent tanks and armored vehicles into the Syrian border town of Al-Rai, effectively opening a new front in its campaign against ISIS, Turkish state media reported.
On the other side of the operation, Free Syrian Army fighters reached 24 kilometers south of the Turkish border inside Syria and arrived in the Sucu Cayi region, west of the Euphrates River.
Turkish armored units, artillery and air force took part in the battles, along with some 1,000 Syrian rebel fighters and air support from the US -led coalition against Islamic State.
The loss of its territory along the Turkish border follows a series of recent defeats for the Islamic State, including its expulsion from the central Iraqi city of Fallujah and its defeat in the former stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria. “We are there to protect our borders, ensure the safety of our citizens’ lives and property, and to protect the territorial integrity of Syria”, he said.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency also reported that the advance had “removed terror organization Daesh’s [Isis] physical contact with the Turkish border in northern Syria”.
Turkish tanks crossed last Saturday into the northern Syrian town of al Rai from Turkey’s southeastern Kilis province, as Turkish howitzers pounded Daesh positions during their passage. In comments to reporters after meeting Obama, Erdogan reiterated that the Kurds are as much of a target of Turkey’s Syria intervention as the Islamic State.
Turkey is fighting a three-decade-old Kurdish insurgency in its southeast and fears that gains by YPG will embolden militants at home.
Meanwhile, Turkish EU minister Omer Celik said that operation Euphrates Shield will continue because Turkey would not want to see headquarters and flags of Kurdish Workers’ Party and ISIS on the borders.
The Turkish-backed advance denied Islamic State its main route to the outside world, through which it has moved fighters and weapons.
But she cautioned that setbacks for the Islamic State can lead to “a unsafe new phase” by the group, which sometimes resorts to “infiltration and spectacular attacks that exploit and widen rifts” between populations, groups and security forces in both western and northern Syria. The aim of these terrorist organisations is… to form a state in these countries…
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Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops.
