US officials said that as Turkish units move on the city of Dabiq, our forces would move with them.
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Over the last 24 hours, Turkish news outlets and local social media accounts have circulated images of the Stars and Stripes atop some buildings in the city of Tell Abyad.
Turkey has suffered a series of suicide bombings and attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish militants over the past year.
Although Turkey and Russian Federation have been on opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, with Turkey insisting on the removal of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, the meeting between Gerasimov and Akar might be a sign that Turkey is coming to accept Russia’s position on Assad’s survival.
Rudskoi accused Washington of failing to fulfill its obligations under the truce deal – most importantly to separate the US -backed opposition units from al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.
“Washington should think about who it would prefer controlling large parts of the country – the Turkish-backed “moderate” groups that just threatened to massacre USA troops sent to help them, or the Kurds and their multi-ethnic and multi-religious allies in the Kobane, Jezira and Afrin”, Romano told ARA News.
Erdogan said Turkey’s offensive inside Syria, which started on August 24 under operation Euphrates Shield, has already cleared “terrorist groups” from an area of about 900 square kilometers.
The ceasefire’s co-sponsors, Russian Federation and the United States, have each blamed one another, with relations strained even further after the US-led raid killed scores of Syrian soldiers on Saturday.
Meanwhile, humanitarian convoys were still stuck at the Turkish-Syrian borders waiting for the Syrian regime to allow them to enter the besieged and hungry city of Aleppo, amid U.S.
Turkish-backed rebels were pushing south in an operation in northern Syria on Friday, Turkey’s military said, and five rebels and five Islamic State militants had been killed across the region.
“American personnel withdrew; some to Turkey, some to Tathamus”, he said.
The strike has threatened an already fragile USA – and Russia-brokered cease-fire that has largely held despite dozens of alleged violations on both sides.
The evening strikes on Aleppo killed one woman and wounded others, said the Britain-based Observatory, which could not identify who carried them out. There were 300 rebel violations of the ceasefire, the military said, according to SANA. “I believe that the truce is clinically dead”.
He also said that the Turkish Red Crescent, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), and non-governmental organizations are helping to meet Syrians’ needs.
Rankine-Galloway called the area that Turkey was working to secure “strategically important” to ISIS.
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Small numbers of US special operations forces for the first time are accompanying Turkish government forces and their Syrian opposition partners fighting Islamic State militants inside Syria, military and administration officials said Friday.
