That claim, and the images, were not independently verified.
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Both Turkey and the YPG are fighting against the IS, and the YPG is seen by Washington as critical to the USA -led coalition’s strategy against Islamic State.
The clashes underscore the complexity of the US -led global coalition campaign to reverse Islamic State’s territorial hold in Syria and the dangers faced in that mission.
The clashes underscore the complexity of the USA -led global coalition campaign to reverse Islamic State’s territorial hold in Syria and the dangers faced in that mission.
The fighting pits Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, against a US -backed proxy that is the most effective ground force battling IS militants in Syria in the 5-year-old civil war. The military campaign, going on for at least five days, has targeted Islamic State (Isis) fighters as well as Kurdish militias.
Turkish security sources said warplanes and artillery had hit Kurdish YPG militia sites near Manbij, a city south of Jarablus that was captured by Kurdish-aligned SDF this month in a US-backed operation. Instead of retreating to the east side of the Euphrates River outside Manbij, YPG in recent weeks has moved to expand westward in a new land grab, according to US and Turkish officials.
A possible Turkish campaign against the Kurds in Syria could also risk igniting further clashes with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) militants inside Turkey, the BBC said.
Turkey says its operations in northern Syria are directed against both Islamic State and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which it regards as the Syrian branch of Kurdish rebels operating on its soil. Washington backs the SDF and YPG, seeing them as the most reliable and effective ally in the fight against Isis in Syria.
They were Turkey’s first casualties since dispatching tanks and special forces units, backed by USA and Turkish fighter jets, into Syria on Wednesday to oust the Islamic State militant group from the border town of Jarabulus.
Various factions of the Turkey-backed Syrian rebels said Sunday they had seized at least four villages and one town from Kurdish-led forces south of Jarablus. One of the villages to change hands was Amarneh, where clashes had been fiercest. The rockets had been fired from an area where the YPG militia has been active.
Separately, the Turkish prime minister’s office said 10 villages around Jarabulus and three around Al-Rai, further to the west along the Turkish border, had been liberated by the FSA without saying which group had previously held the villages. It didn’t give any more details about the location of the attack.
A monitoring group has countered that claim, however, reporting almost 40 killed, the majority of which were civilians.
The fighting killed 20 civilians in Jub al-Kousa and 15 in al-Amarna, while scores more were wounded, the group said.
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At least 20 civilians were killed and 50 wounded in Turkish artillery fire and air strikes on the village of Jeb el-Kussa early today, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
