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Turkish Operation in Syria to Continue Until Kurdish Threat Eliminated – Erdogan

Turkey’s army killed at least 35 civilians in Syria on Sunday as it pushed deeper into the Syrian territory along the Turkish border, seizing land controlled by USA -backed forces on its fifth day of a cross-border, US -backed campaign against both the Kurdish YPG militia and the Islamic State group.

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Turkish tanks and attack aircraft have clashed with Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria, just hours after hopes were raised about a new general ceasefire in the war-torn country.

Turkey’s offensive against the YPG and its allied force puts Ankara at odds with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally the United States, which sees the group as an effective Syrian ally against the Islamic State group, further complicating Syria’s five-year-old civil war.

On Sunday, two separate blasts in the Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast killed one Turkish soldier and wounded eight others, and Kurdish militants launched a rocket-propelled grenade at a civilian airport, officials and the state-run news agency said.

SDF spokesman Shervan Darwish said the airstrikes and shelling started overnight and continued Sunday along the front line, killing many civilians in Beir Khoussa and nearby areas.

Among the villages Turkish-backed rebels have seized from Kurdish aligned forces is al Amarna, where fighting has been described as fierce over the past few days.

Another 20 were killed and 25 wounded, many seriously, in Turkish air strikes near the town of Al-Amarneh, it said.

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 USA support. He also said Turkish-backed rebels were pushing west against Islamic State. Ankara views the PYD and the militia affiliated with it, which forms the backbone of the USA -backed Syria Democratic Forces, or SDF, as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency that is raging in southeastern Turkey.

Operations against DAESH terrorist group in northern Syria continue.

Escalating tensions between Turkish armed forces and Syrian Kurdish rebels in the newest battlefront of the complex war may endanger US forces in the area and complicate their mission to eradicate IS, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Turkey confirmed its F-16s launched airstrikes on both Kurdish and Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) targets in Syria on August 27. He said the bombing also targeted the village of Amarneh. He said 50 Turkish tanks were taking part. Images of other children shaking as doctors tried to treat them for the burns were posted on social media sites. The district’s hospital was bombed and taken out of operation earlier this month. Five buildings used by the Kurdish rebels also were destroyed, the military said. An aid convoy reached the area on Aug.25.

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According to local residents, the escalation follows recent threats by soldiers at checkpoints that the government’s patience was running out with the district, the last rebel holdout in the city.

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