Turkey gains ground in Syria
Army advances attacks on Kurdish forces, says Ankara
CEYLANPINAR: Turkish ground forces pressed their advance against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, Turkey’s Defence Ministry said, launching airstrikes and unleashing artillery on Syrian towns and villages the length of its border.
The Turkish invasion, now in its second day, has been widely condemned around the world.
In northern Syria, residents of the border areas scrambled in panic on Wednesday as they tried to get out on foot, in cars and with rickshaws piled with mattresses and a few belongings.
It was a wrenchingly familiar scenario for the many who, only a few years ago, had fled the advances on their towns and villages by the Islamic State group.
A Kurdish-led group and Syrian activists claimed yesterday that despite the heavy barrage, Turkish troops had not made much progress on several fronts they had opened over the past hours.
But their claims could not be independently verified and the situation on the ground was difficult to assess.
Turkey began its offensive in northern Syria on Wednesday against Kurdish fighters with air strikes and artillery shelling, before ground troops began crossing the border later in the day.
US troops pulled back from the area, paving the way for Turkey’s assault on Syrian Kurdish forces.
Turkey has long threatened to attack the Kurdish fighters whom Ankara considers terrorists allied with a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey.
Expectations of an invasion increased after President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision on Sunday to essentially abandon the Syrian Kurdish fighters, leaving them vulnerable to a Turkish offensive.
The Kurds, who have been America’s only allies in Syria fighting the Islamic State group, stopped all their operations against the IS extremists yesterday in order to focus on fighting advancing Turkish troops, Kurdish and US officials said.
Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said their fighters had managed to repel Turkish forces ground attacks. In Washington, officials said on Wednesday that two British militants believed to be part of an IS cell that beheaded hostages had been moved out of a detention centre in Syria and were in US custody.
The two, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, along with other British militants allegedly made up the IS cell nicknamed “The Beatles” by surviving captives because of their English accents.