Turkey launched a cross-border operation on August 24 along with Free Syrian Army units to clear the village of Jarablus of IS militants.
Advertisement
Turkey had last week launched a cross-border offensive with the aim to drive off the jihadists from the area.
“It has been calm since yesterday on the Jarabulus southern front against SDF forces”, Ahmed Othman, a commander of the “Sultan Murad” faction told AFP – an account corroborated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The suicide attack is the first by IS to target Turkish-backed rebels since they entered Syria last week. Turkey on Wednesday dismissed reports of a cease-fire deal with Kurdish rebels in northern Syria, and vowed to continue its week-old military incursion into the neighboring country until all “terror entities are eliminated”.
Ankara has denied statements from Kurdish fighters in Syria that a temporary truce had been agreed, saying it would not make any pact with the Kurdish YPG militia, a powerful force in the SDF coalition, as it considers it a terrorist body.
The new U.S. general in charge of the USA war against IS has said the United States and its allies intend to take Raqqa by next August – and the USA is depending on its Kurdish allies to comprise the main ground fighting force in the effort.
The YPG says it has already removed its forces from the area of the Turkish-backed campaign.
On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed USA claims that the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had retreated to the northeast, as demanded.
According to the United Kingdom based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 40 civilians were killed in separate Turkish strikes near the village of al-Amarneh and in Jeb al-Kussa, which are just outside Jarablus.
Celik told the Anadolu news agency that “to suggest (Turkey) is on a par with a terrorist organization and suggest there are talks between them, that a deal has been reached between them, this is unacceptable”. “This is how we see things and how we put up our struggle”, he said, according to a transcript of an interview with China’s CCTV released by Erdogan’s office.
Turkey’s pro-government Daily Sabah newspaper said Turkish air strikes in support of the rebels continued on Saturday.
Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies have kept up their fight against ISIS, whose strategist Abu Mohamed al-Adnani was killed in an air strike Tuesday claimed both by the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and Russian Federation.
While pressing its Syria offensive, Turkey has also been reinforcing its defenses to prevent cross-border attacks.
In the past few months, Turkey has watched in alarm as the PKK’s Syrian Kurdish allies advance on the other side of the border, fearing their territorial expansion will strengthen the PKK. It accelerated the surrender of the gunmen in Daraya, forcing them to reach a deal with the government which fully evacuated the almost 4,000 people still living in a neighborhood that was once home to more than 200,000.
Prime Minister Binali Yildrim said that “Operation Euphrates Shield” will continue, adding that Kurdish militias – the PKK, PYD and the YPG – “are all the same and hurt Turkey”.
Advertisement
According to Ford, the Obama administration feared it would violate global law if it armed forces that would in turn attack the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
