Turkish officials had no immediate comment on the report which, if confirmed, would signal Turkey’s action against Kurdish-aligned forces was being ratcheted up a notch.
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It also underscores Ankara’s determination to push back Kurdish forces from along its borders, and curb their ambitions to form a contiguous entity in northern Syria.
In response to the Turkish strike, it said: “If they do not attack our forces, then we will keep the border strip secure”.
The Jarablus Military Council, which is backed by the Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces, said Turkish airstrikes hit several of its positions near Jarablus on Saturday.
On August 24, Turkish tanks and armored personnel carriers crossed the border into Syria as part of an ongoing operation aimed at driving IS militants out of the border region and stopping Kurdish militias from seizing territory in the area.
A senior Turkish official was quoted by Reuters as saying that there were more than 20 Turkish tanks inside Syria on Thursday, and that additional tanks and construction machinery would be sent in as required.
A photographer in the village of Karkamis on the Turkish side of the border saw six more tanks roll over the frontier as mop-up operations continued in a town wrested from the Islamic State group (ISIS). Washington, however, has backed the YPG in a separate campaign against ISIL in northern Syria, highlighting the cross-cutting of interests of two pivotal North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies. Turkey says the Kurds must withdraw to the east of the nearby Euphrates River.
Elsewhere, the Syrian government said it now has full control of the Damascus suburb of Daraya, following the completion of a forced evacuation deal struck with the government that emptied the area of its remaining rebels and residents and ended a four-year siege and grueling bombing campaign.
The declaration comes a day after the evacuation of almost 5,000 residents and fighters from the suburb began.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed insurgent group which it considers a terror organization.
Daraya was the last remaining rebel holdout in the region known as western Ghouta – and the closest to the capital.
It comes days after another 15 people, mostly children, were killed in another reported barrel bombing in a rebel-held part of Aleppo.
Some 700 gunmen and 4,000 civilians were evacuated.
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Some 280 rebels, their families and wounded arrived Saturday morning in a village in the northern rebel-held Idlib province. Minutes later, Khandakani said another barrel bomb was dropped, injuring an ambulance driver, and hampering rescue efforts. The government denies it uses barrel bombs.
