Clashes despite Turkey ceasefire
5 civilians deaths witnessed even as US brokers five-day agreement
Tal Tamr, Oct. 18: Deadly Turkish airstrikes on Friday shattered a 13hour-old US-brokered deal to stop Ankara’s military offensive against Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria.
The ceasefire announced late on Thursday was meant to provide a pause for the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from the battleground border town of Ras al-Ain and other areas Turkey wants to control along its border with Syria.
The five-day suspension looked designed to help Turkey achieve its main territorial goals without fighting but its Syrian proxies continued to clash with Kurdish fighters on Friday and an air strike killed five civilians.
“Five civilians were killed in Turkish air strikes on the village of Bab al-Kheir, east of Ras al-Ain,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.
The Britain-based war monitor said four fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces — the de facto army of the embattled Kurdish autonomous region — were killed in the strike.
The incident took place even as a 200-vehicle convoy
headed towards Ras al-Ain to evacuate civilians who have been virtually besieged there since the start of Turkey’s cross-border assault on October 9.
Mustefa Bali, a spokesman for the SDF, said Turkey was clearly violating the terms of the agreement reached during a Thursday visit to
Ankara by US VicePresident Mike Pence.
“Despite the agreement to halt the fighting, air and artillery attacks continue to target the positions of fighters, settlements and hospitals,” in Ras al-Ain, he said.
Under the deal, Kurdish forces are required to withdraw from a border strip 32 kilometres deep,
clearing the way for a ‘safe zone’ sought by Turkey.
The Kurdish-led SDF had said they were ready to abide by the ceasefire in border territory between Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad to its west.
The Turkish offensive was sparked by US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a US withdrawal from northern Syria, leading critics to accuse him of betraying Washington’s Kurdish allies.
On Thursday evening, Trump said he allowed the two sides to fight for a few days before brokering a truce as they were like “kids in a lot.”
The Turkish military and its Syrian proxies — mostly Arab and Turkmen former rebels used as a ground force — have so far seized around 120 kilometres of territory along the border.
Kurdish forces have put up fierce resistance in Ras al-Ain, with a network of tunnels, berms and trenches that held off the Turkish onslaught for a week. Ankara considers the Kurdish forces to be terrorists linked to Kurdish rebels inside Turkey.
Turkish forces and their allies had taken control of half of Ras al-Ain on Thursday when its hospital was hit, trapping patients and staff inside, Abdel Rahman said.
Kurdish authorities sent a medical team to rescue the wounded but it was prevented from entering the town, said Hassan Amin, a director of the hospital in nearby Tal Tamr. —