Turkey intensifies Syria offensive; 40 killed
ANKARA-BACKED REBELS SEIZE VILLAGES FROM KURDISH-LED FORCES
T urkey-backed Syrian rebels seized a number of villages and towns from Kurdishled forces in northern Syria yesterday amid Turkish air strikes and shelling that killed at least 40 people, mostly civilians, according to rebels and a monitoring group.
Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels drive Daesh out of the frontier town of Jarablus last week in a dramatic escalation of its involvement in the Syrian civil war.
The operation, labelled Euphrates Shield, is also aimed at pushing back US-allied Kurdish forces. The fighting pits a Nato ally against a USbacked proxy that is the most effective ground force battling Daesh in Syria.
A Turkish soldier was killed by a Kurdish rocket attack late Saturday, the first such fatality in the offensive, now in its fifth day.
Turkey-backed Syrian rebels said yesterday they had seized at least four villages and one town from Kurdishled forces south of Jarablus. Ankara is deeply suspicious of the Syrian Kurdish militia that dominates the USbacked Syria Democratic Forces, viewing it as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency raging in southeastern Turkey. Turkish leaders have vowed to drive both Daesh and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, away from the border.
Meanwhile, Syrian regime warplanes renewed their air campaign against the besieged neighbourhood of Al Waer in the central city of Homs. The neighbourhood came under a gruelling air strike campaign a day earlier, including incendiary bombs that left two children, a brother and sister, badly charred.
ASyrian rebel commander said that Turkish-backed rebels aim to capture Manbij city from Kurdish-allied forces as conflict between the sides escalated in northern Syria yesterday. Manbij on the west bank of the Euphrates River was captured this month from Daesh by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, including the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, in a United States-backed offensive.
Colonel Ahmad Othman, head of the Sultan Murad rebel group, told Reuters that the Turkey-backed rebel force was “certainly heading in the direction of Manbij” since YPG forces had fortified their positions rather than evacuate.
Turkey-backed Syrian rebels seized a number of villages and towns from Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria yesterday amid Turkish air strikes and shelling that killed at least 40 people, mostly civilians, according to rebels and a monitoring group.
Rebels said they seized at least four villages and one town from Kurdish-led forces south of Jarablus. One of the villages to change hands was Amarneh, where clashes had been fiercest. Rebels posted pictures from inside the village.
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.
The bombardments came after Ankara suffered its first military fatality since it launched the two-pronged offensive against Daesh and Syrian Kurdish militia inside Syria on Wednesday. At least 20 civilians were killed and 50 wounded in Turkish artillery fire and air strikes on the village of Jeb Al Kussa early yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Casualties
Another 20 were killed and 25 wounded, many seriously, in Turkish air strikes near the town of Al Amarneh, it said.
The monitor also said at least four Kurdish fighters had been killed and 15 injured in Turkish bombardment of the two areas. A spokesman for the local Kurdish administration said 75 people had been killed in both villages.
The Britain-based Observatory said the bombardment targeted an area south of the former Daesh border stronghold of Jarabulus, which Turkish-led forces captured on the first day of the incursion.
Fighting has since intensified south of the town, where clashes erupted between Turkish troops and forces belonging to the Kurdish Democratic Union (PYD) party, which Ankara considers a terrorist group linked with Kurdish militants in Turkey.
US-backed Kurdish forces have also been fighting Daesh in Syria but Turkey fiercely opposes any move by Kurds to expand into territory lost by the jihadists.
The latest fighting is likely to raise deep concerns for Turkey’s Nato ally the United States, which supports the Kurdish militia — known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) — as an effective fighting force against Daesh.
The Turkish soldier was killed and three more wounded on Saturday in a rocket attack by Kurdish militia on two tanks taking part in an offensive against the pro-Kurdish forces south of Jarabulus.
Erdogan visit
Turkish media named the dead soldier as Ercan Celik, 28, and said a funeral for him was held yesterday in Gaziantep.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was due to visit the city yesterday to express condolences for last weekend’s suicide bombing there at a Kurdish wedding that left 54 dead.
Turkish forces carried out their first air strikes on proKurdish positions on Saturday as part of what Ankara is calling “Operation Euphrates Shield”.
Turkey says that the YPG — which it regards as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — has failed to stick to a promise to return across the Euphrates River after advancing west this month despite guarantees given by Washington.
Ankara fears the emergence of a contiguous autonomous Kurdish region in Syria would bolster the PKK rebels across the border in southeast Turkey.
Ankara’s military intervention in Syria has added another dimension to the country’s complex multi-front war, a devastating conflict that has killed more than 290,000 people and forced millions from their homes since it began in March 2011.
Much of the heaviest fighting this summer has focused on second city Aleppo, which is roughly divided between rebel forces and President Bashar Al Assad’s troops.
Meanwhile, global powers have been pushing for 48-hour humanitarian ceasefires in the embattled city and UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has urged warring parties to announce whether they will commit to a pause in the fighting.
The UN says it has “pre-positioned” aid to go to the city for some 80,000 people.