Turkish forces take a portion of key town
AKCAKALE, Turkey — Turkishled troops made the first significant strategic breakthrough in their invasion of the Kurdish-held region of Syria on Saturday, entering a border town that had been the focus of a ground war between Turkey and Kurdish fighters since Wednesday.
The Turkish Defense Ministry announced that its forces had taken part of the town, Ras al-Ain, which nestles up to the border with Turkey on a road connecting the eastern and western wings of Kurdish-held territory. If the Turkish forces capture the entire town, they would control one of the two main roads that link major Kurdish-controlled cities, making it harder for Kurdish forces to move troops and supplies.
Footage broadcast on Turkish television showed members of a Syrian Arab militia, fighting under Turkish command, in the streets of the seemingly abandoned town. But Kurdish-led forces said they were still present in another part of Ras al-Ain.
Turkish troops and their Arab allies were pushing to take a second strategic border town, Tel Abyad, 75 miles to the west, and an advance group briefly reached a second major supply route, roughly 20 miles inside Syria, before quickly retreating. The Turkish government said its incursions have been relatively small, with soldiers holding territory only a few miles inside Kurdish territory. Its aerial bombardment has affected a much wider area.
The invasion, which entered its fourth day Saturday, has compounded the complexity of the civil war in Syria, disrupted a campaign to drive out the Islamic State group from Northern Syria, prompted a new wave of displacement and put at risk U.S. troops working with the Kurds on counterterrorism missions.
The invasion has prompted a threat of crippling U.S. sanctions and a wave of international criticism, the latest from German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who announced Saturday that his country would block future exports of weapons that could be used by Turkey in Syria.
Turkey says it wants to create a buffer zone from the border into Syrian territory that is controlled by a Kurdish-led militia. The militia has close links to a guerrilla movement that has been fighting a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.
But that has upended efforts to contain the Islamic State, which seized large swaths of Syrian land amid the turmoil of the early years of the Syrian civil war. The Islamic State militants were later forced from northern Syria by the Kurdish militia, in partnership with U.S. troops.
But distracted by the invasion, Kurdish authorities have diverted resources away from counterterrorism operations, leaving their territory more vulnerable to the sleeper cells of a resurgent Islamic State.
“We are now fighting on two fronts — one front against the Turkish invasion and a front against” the Islamic State, a Kurdish military official, Redur Xelil, said at a news conference Saturday in Al Hasakah.
The extremist group has already claimed responsibility for a car bomb in Qamishli, the regional capital, that exploded Friday. A second car bomb exploded early Saturday in Al Hasakah, outside a prison containing Islamic State militants.
Kurdish authorities are guarding 11,000 Islamic State fighters and their families, but the already limited ability to secure them is now under further threat. Turkish airstrikes near a prison in Qamishli on Friday allowed five Islamic State prisoners to escape.
U.S. troops fell under Turkish artillery fire Friday night, the Pentagon confirmed, escalating a disagreement between American and Turkish officials about the scale and scope of the invasion.
U.S. troops had vacated part of northern Syria around Ras al-Ain earlier in the week. But U.S. forces remain in other parts of Kurdishheld Syria to continue counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State.
That has failed to deter the Turkish army from bombarding Kurdish-run cities all along the border, endangering U.S. troops posted there.
The bombardments have spurred a fresh wave of displacement, with more than 100,000 residents of Kurdish-held Syria fleeing south, away from the Turkish border, according to U.N. estimates.
Overall, at least 14 civilians in Kurdish-run towns have died and 60 others have been injured since Wednesday, according to the Kurdish Red Crescent.
More than 50 Kurdish and 40 Turkish-led fighters have also been killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor based in Britain.