Turkey-backed Syrian rebels seized a number of villages and towns from Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria on Sunday amid Turkish airstrikes and shelling that killed at least 35 people, mostly civilians, according to rebels and a monitoring group.
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He did not identify the forces being sent to Manbij and Jarablus, but he said military councils in both cities are made up of local fighters and some Free Syrian Army rebel groups which are allied to the USA -backed anti-Islamic State alliance the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Turkey, which is also battling Kurdish insurgents on its own soil, sent tanks and troops into Syria on Wednesday to support its Syrian rebel allies.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Sunday to devote equal energy to combatting Islamic State (IS) militants and Syrian Kurdish fighters, on the fifth day of a major offensive that has left dozens dead.
SDF spokesman Shervan Darwish said the airstrikes and shelling began overnight and continued Sunday along the front line, killing many civilians in Beir Koussa and nearby areas.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the casualties occurred at Jeb el-Kussa, a village just south of Jarablus.
Turkish forces carried out their first air strikes on pro-Kurdish positions yesterday as part of what Ankara is calling “Operation Euphrates Shield”.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said the army had killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” in air strikes as part of its unprecedented operation inside Syria.
Turkey’s military says 25 PKK/PYD terrorists were “neutralized” in northern Syria in an air strike on Sunday, Anadolu reported.
The fighting pits Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, against a US -backed proxy that is the most effective ground force battling IS militants in Syria in the 5-year-old civil war.
A monitoring group has countered that claim, however, reporting almost 40 killed, the majority of which were civilians. YPG leaders say they have, but their units advise the Syrian Democratic Forces, and it is not clear if any remain west of the Euphrates.
Turkey considers Syrian Kurds a branch of the PKK and thus terrorists, but the United States, the European Union and others do not, and have provided the Syrian Kurds support in the effort against the Islamic State.
He said the bombing also targeted Amarneh village and that 50 Turkish tanks had been involved in the offensive.
Kurdish fighters belonging to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) put a YPG flag on the door of the central prison in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakeh on August 23, 2016, after they agreed to a truce with regime forces.
Turkey’s offensive against the YPG and its allied force puts Ankara at odds with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally the United States, which sees the group as an effective Syrian ally against the Islamic State group, further complicating Syria’s five-year-old civil war.
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Several attacks have take place in Turkey previous year and many of them have been blamed on the Islamic State group.
