“A child was killed, and more than 80 civilians were wounded in the shooting”, Anwar Muslim, an official in Kobani, told the German news agency DPA on Friday. Jordan says aid groups must find another way to reach the displaced.
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As for Turkey’s intervention in Syria, the cross-border offensive witnessed renewed air strikes on ISIS sites in Syria on Friday, extending operations along a 90-km band near the Turkish border which Ankara says it is clearing of extremists and protecting from Kurdish militia expansion. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the Turkish troops.
“Turkey is trying to build a wall of shame and is trying to divide homes”, Kurdo said, “Because of this, people reacted and protested today”. But it views the Syrian Kurdish YPG, which is backed by Washington, as an extension of Kurdish militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency on its own soil.
While Ankara maintained a defiant tone, one of the rebel factions fighting alongside Turkey said the combat had eased.
Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies began the August 24 offensive by seizing Jarablus, a Syrian frontier town, from Islamic State, before turning their sights on what the army said were YPG positions.
Syrian rebels backed by Turkey seized several villages from Islamic State near the town of al-Rai, from where the rebel groups launched a new operation against the jihadists earlier on Saturday, a rebel official said.
The United States is working frantically to ensure fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia (YPG) are not further attacked by Turkey, and has encouraged them to move east of the Euphrates river and away from Jarabulus and another key city to the south, Manbij.
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Erdogan, however, dismissed claims that the Kurdish YPG had withdrawn to a Kurdish-controlled region to the east of the Euphrates River. Turkey does not want the rebels it considers terrorists to form a corridor on its border.
