Yesterday, Turkish forces ramped up their offensive, with Turkish warplanes and artillery pounding areas held by pro-Kurdish forces close to a town liberated from IS recently. Turkish military officials believe the Kurdish fighters launched rockets that killed the soldier. As Daesh moved to the town, hundreds of Kurdish civilians took refuge in neighboring Turkey, where they were kept along the border.
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BEIRUT (AP) – Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria say Turkish airstrikes hit bases and residential areas on Saturday near Jarablus, a town seized by Turkey-backed rebels earlier this week.
The militants fled the town without putting up a fight. Ankara views the PYD and the militia affiliated with it, which forms the backbone of the US -backed Syria Democratic Forces, or SDF, as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency that is raging in southeastern Turkey. It has demanded the YPG, which makes up the bulk of the SDF and has been one of the most effective USA ally in the fight against IS, withdraw to the east bank of the Euphrates River.
The U.S. also supports the Turkish-led campaign launched last week aimed at clearing Jarablus of Islamic State positions and mop up any fighters that escaped Manbij, approximately 20 miles further south from the Turkish border. A video posted on social media showed Syrian rebels beating captured fighters allied with the Kurds.
Did coup plotters stall Turkey’s Syria mission? The Turkish military said they killed at least 25 “terrorists”, and didn’t comment on the reported civilian deaths, except to say that commanders are taking all necessary measures to protect noncombatants. According to monitoring groups, more than 300 civilians have been killed in fighting there this month.
They posted images allegedly showing the village after it was taken, including pictures the accounts said showed Kurdish militants captured alive in the area during the battles, as well as ID cards allegedly belonging to SDF fighters. Targeting the Kurdish forces also could fuel friction with Washington, which views the SDF and the YPG as its most effective partners against the Islamic State.
“Our forces entered the last areas held by Daesh in Sirte: district number one and district number three”, a spokesman for the pro-GNA forces said yesterday, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
Turkey said the dead were Kurdish YPG militants. The YPG insists those areas are part of their own terriritoty, and there’s no way it will pull out. What is clear, though, is that its SDF allies have not. But following the Turkish offensive, local forces with Kurdish fighters and backed by YPG advisers pushed their way north of Manbij, in a rush for control of Jarablus.
Turkey is part of the USA -led coalition fighting IS, but the airstrikes that began Saturday marked the first time it has targeted Kurdish-led forces in Syria. Ali Hashem reports, “The shared interest in preventing the emergence of a Kurdish state puts Iran and Turkey on the same page when it comes to exerting all possible efforts to keep Syria united and under centralized rule”.
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This latest push by Turkey threatens to further split the rebels.
