The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday said that IS (Daesh) militants “had lost its contact with the outside world after losing the remaining border villages between the Sajur River. and Al-Rai”.
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“We will never allow an artificial state in Syria’s north”, he said, apparently referring to USA -backed Kurdish forces, who have taken a large swath of territory from IS along the border.
Turkey should put pressure on the U.S. in order to achieve the withdrawal of Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) from strategically important city of Manbij in Syria on the west bank of the Euphrates River, says a Turkish expert.
ISIS has lost control of all territories on Syria’s border with Turkey, according to monitoring groups.
While Turkey is a member of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition, the country has been accused of not taking the ISIL threat seriously and fighters crossed into ISIL territory easily from Turkish border towns. Aleppo has been a major battlefield in Syria since 2011, with fierce fighting between rebel groups and regime forces.
The Turkish military responded to the rockets on Saturday with howitzers, striking two weapons depots and bunkers, and “destroying the locations and the Daesh terrorists there”, the state-run Anadolu news agency said, referring to IS by an Arabic acronym. This leaves them a wide ribbon of territory they’ll be expected to defend, with the only towns of note on the easternmost and westernmost edges. Turkey considers YPG a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.
The push came a month after insurgents captured several military academies south of Aleppo and opened a corridor into rebel-held parts of Syria’s largest city and onetime commercial center. Turkey has long pushed for a safe zone in Syria between these two towns, with a plan to house Syrian refugees there.
A deal would depend on Moscow using its influence with Syrian President Bashar Assad to persuade him to ground planes and stop the assault on opposition forces. The Turkey-backed rebels, primarily Ahrar al-Sham and a faction of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), have said they had only 1,000 – 1,200 troops in Jarabulus.
In Turkey itself, Kurds have been fighting for independence for three decades in the southeast, and the PKK in that country is classed as a terrorist group by both Turkey and the US.
Speaking to reporters at the G20 meeting in China, Mr Obama said: “We have grave differences with the Russians in terms of both the parties we support but also the process that is required to bring about peace in Syria”.
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The development leaves about 250,000 people living in rebel-controlled parts of the city cut off from the outside world once again, and will raise new fears about a humanitarian crisis in Aleppo.
