Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels capture Jarablus from the Islamic State group.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday vowed to devote equal energy to combating Islamic State militants and Syrian Kurdish fighters, on the fifth day of a major offensive that has left dozens dead.
On Sunday, pro-Turkey Syrian rebels of the US -backed Free Syrian Army said they had wrested 10 villages from Kurdish control, while seizing four villages from the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS.
The SDF, which is spearheaded by the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia, has been lauded by both Russian Federation and the West as one of the most effective forces fighting Isis, and has received extensive U.S. support.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, citing the Turkish military, said the attack was carried out against “terrorists groups” that had attacked Turkish troops supporting a Free Syrian Army operation targeting Islamic State militants.
Turkey said one of its soldiers was killed on Saturday when a rocket that it said came from a YPG-controlled area hit a tank. The move aims to both fight IS and halt the advance of Syrian Kurdish groups.
Turkey views both ISIS and Kurdish rebels as foes and its allegiances have complicated its relationship with the United States.
The animosities threaten to pit two groups of US-aided forces – the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon-backed Syrian Arab and Turkmen rebels of the Free Syrian Army and the Pentagon-backed Kurdish forces – against each other.
Ankara has insisted it would not accept any such entity along its borders because it would galvanize Kurdish groups in Turkey to pursue their secession plans. On Friday, the Kurdish spokesman for the council said it would confront any Turkish-backed rebels entering their town.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Kerry said the two sides agreed that there is no military solution to the Syrian civil war, adding the past few weeks of talks have been “fair, diligent and productive”.
Genco said PYD terrorists tried to use civilians found in the village as shields.
The attack is indicative of the complicated situation in Syria, where North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey is allied with the U.S. against Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the USA also supports the Kurds fighting Islamic State but who also support their ethnic brethren mounting an insurgency in Turkey.
Jarabulus lies in the middle of two Kurdish-dominated swaths of land. The territory in brown is held by IS, the territory in green by Syrian Arab rebels (or “the mujahideen”, as the tweet describes them) and the territory in yellow by Kurdish forces. The US, on the other side, has said it will try to prevent Turkey coming into conflict with its allies in the region.
“Unofficial numbers say the YPG sustained 800 martyrs in the fight for Manbij, and then America comes and asks them to withdraw?”
He added that the Kurdish group had been left in an awkward position: If it does as the USA requests, it risks losing support among its followers; if it doesn’t, it risks losing US support.
Ankara considers the YPG a “terrorist” group and has fiercely opposed its bid to expand into areas recaptured from ISIS to create a contiguous autonomous zone. Meanwhile a bloody battle for the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, is ongoing. Like Manbij and Jarabulus, Al-Bab represents another link in the projected Kurdish corridor.
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The Syrian state news agency SANA reported that 20 civilians were killed and 50 wounded by Turkish artillery and airstrikes, calling it “encroachment” on Syrian sovereignty under the pretext of fighting IS.
