Turkey helps rebels advance
BEIRUT — Turkeybacked Syrian rebels seized a number of villages and towns from Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria on Sunday amid Turkish air strikes and shelling that killed at least 35 people, mostly civilians, according to rebels and a monitoring group.
Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels drive the Islamic State group out of the frontier town of Jarablus last week in a major escalation of its involvement in the Syrian civil war.
The operation, labeled Euphrates Shield, is also aimed at pushing back U.S.-allied Kurdish forces. The fighting pits a NATO ally against a U.S.-backed proxy that is the most effective ground force battling the Islamic State in Syria.
Turkey’s military said its warplanes killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” and destroyed five buildings used by the fighters in response to attacks on advancing Turkishbacked rebels in the Jarablus area.
A Turkish soldier was killed by a Kurdish rocket attack late Saturday, the first such fatality in the offensive, now in its fifth day.
Various factions of the Turkey-backed Syrian rebels said Sunday they had 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.
Ankara is deeply suspicious of the Syrian Kurdish militia that dominates the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces, viewing it as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency raging in southeastern Turkey. Turkish leaders have vowed to drive both the Islamic State and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, away from the border.
Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, but the air strikes that began Saturday marked the first time it has targeted Kurdish-led forces in Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bombing killed at least 20 civilians and four Kurdish-led fighters in Beir Khoussa, a village about nine miles south of Jarablus, and another 15 in a village to the west.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported that 20 civilians were killed and 50 wounded in Turkish artillery shelling and air strikes, calling it Turkish “encroachment” on Syrian sovereignty under the pretext of fighting the Islamic State. Turkey is a leading backer of the rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad. But both Ankara and Damascus share concerns over Kurdish ambitions for autonomy.
An Associated Press reporter in the Turkish border town of Karkamis spotted at least three Turkish jets flying into Syria amid heavy Turkish shelling from inside Syrian territory on Sunday morning.