“With the new Free Syrian Army-controlled belt extending three to five kilometers inside Syrian territory, Daesh’s physical contact with the Turkish border has been totally eliminated”, Anadolu reported. “All terrorist organizations have been repulsed and they have gone”, Yildirim said on September 4 during a televised speech while visiting the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.
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The advance took place little more than a week after Turkey launched the Syrian incursion, deploying tanks and air power to support the rebels, who swept into the border town of Jarablus.
About 5,000 US and Turkish-backed Syrian rebels have crossed into northern Syria from Turkey to participate in the so-called Euphrates Shield operation, according to local journalist Adnan al-Hussein, who is embedded with the groups.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Friday told Bloomberg News that Turkey is seeking to prevent a breakup of Syria on ethnic lines with its military operations in the country.
Among Turkey’s strategic goals for the operation was to create a buffer zone within Syria that could protect both its citizens from terror attacks and fleeing Syrians.
The Kurdish YPG militia, backed by the United States, has captured large swathes of territory, alarming Turkey that has vowed to hit the terrorist group harshly.
The U.S. has provided extensive aid and airstrikes to the People’s Protection Units-led Syria Democratic Forces, which have proven to be highly effective against the Islamic State.
USA forces struck #ISIL targets near #Turkey’s border in #Syria last night via newly deployed HIMARS system. The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s.
Turkish and Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces are potentially hours away from completely cutting off the Islamic State’s access to the Turkish border, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
The establishment of such a corridor in northern Syria, which would strengthen the hands of Kurdish groups to launch a Kurdish state in the region, is the biggest fear of Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said in a joint press conference with Obama in China that “our wish is that a terror corridor does not form on our southern border”.
Despite several rounds of worldwide negotiations, a solution to the civil war that has killed more than 290,000 people and displaced millions remains elusive. The fighting – two potential turning points in the conflict if the gains can be sustained – complicated efforts by the United States and Russian Federation to reach a ceasefire deal for Syria, whose civil war is in its sixth year.
Syrian state media said the army and allied forces had taken an area south of Aleppo, severing the sole route left into the eastern neighbourhoods held by the opposition. The system – created to reduce potential collateral damage as it impacts at a high angle and has a relatively small blast radius – was sacked out of southern Turkey, a United States official said.
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A spokesman for the YPG recently criticized Turkey, saying its claims of fighting the group west of the Euphrates River are a pretext to widen its occupation of the Syrian territory.
