Turkish tank units have entered into Syria as part of a military operation backed by Turkish and US-led coalition warplanes to clear the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group from the Syrian border town of Jarablus, according to Turkish state media.
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Turkish forces are using intense artillery fire against Daesh elements in Jarabulus in a retaliatory strike, Turkish officials told Anadolu Agency, APA reports.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said this week that northern Syria should not become the domain of one group and that a “secure zone”, an internationally policed buffer area Turkey proposed in vain in the past, should be reconsidered.
Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala says Turkey launched the operation to free the IS-held Syrian town of Jarablus to safeguard its own security.
NTV described it as an “intruder mission” meant to carry out “pinpoint operations” against IS to clear Jarablus of the extremists.
The situation could deteriorate with a major battle looming just over the border.
The Turkish army began firing artillery rounds into the Syrian border town of Jarablus at around 0100 GMT and Turkish and US warplanes pounded Islamic State targets with air strikes as part of the operation, Turkish military sources said.
Turkish F-16 jets dropped bombs on IS targets in Jarablus, the private NTV television reported, in the first such assaults since a November crisis with Russian Federation that was sparked when the Turkish air force downed one of Moscow’s warplanes.
But its Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said during the weekend that Mr Assad was one of the “actors” in Syria and may be needed as part of a transition, signalling a possible change in policy from Turkey.
Wednesday’s visit comes at a hard time for ties between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies. Turkey is demanding that Washington quickly extradite a US-based cleric blamed for orchestrating last month’s failed coup.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy since the 1980s, but the YPG is backed by the United States as one of the most effective forces battling IS.
Nasser Haj Mansour, an SDF official on the Syrian side of the border, said the fighters gathering in Turkey include “terrorists” as well as Turkish special forces.
In recent days Turkey has increased security measures on its border with Syria, deploying tanks and armored personnel carriers.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlet Cavusolgu had earlier on Tuesday (23 August) pledged to extend his country’s support in driving out IS militants from the Syrian frontier.
Several mortar rounds from IS-held Jarablus hit the Turkish border town of Karkamis on Tuesday, prompting the army to pound the jihadist positions on Syrian soil with artillery strikes. Jarablus, which lies on the western bank of the Euphrates River where it crosses from Turkey into Syria, is one of the last important IS-held towns standing between Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria.
The town is 33 kilometers (20 miles) from the town of Manbij, which was liberated from IS by Kurdish-led forces earlier this month.
Karkamis is in Gaziantep province, whose capital was struck by a devastating bomb attack on a wedding Saturday night that was blamed on ISIS.
Turkey is also concerned about the growing influence of Syrian Kurdish militant groups along its border, where they have captured large areas of territory since the start of the Syrian war in 2011.
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The incursion by Turkish special forces is the first such into Syria since February 2015, when hundreds of Turkish troops crossed the border to move the relics of the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire. Significantly for Ankara, it also separates the two Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria.
