Kurds offer fierce resistance to Turkish invaders

AKCAKALE, Turkey — Turkish forces faced fierce resistance from U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters on the third day of Ankara’s offensive in northern Syria, as casualties mounted, international criticism of the campaign intensified and estimates put the number of those who fled the violence at 100,000.

Later Friday, an explosion was reported in northern Syria near an outpost where U.S. troops are located, but none of the Americans were hurt, according to a U.S. official and a Syria war monitor. It was unclear whether it was from artillery or an airstrike, and it was the first time a coalition base was in the line of fire since Turkey’s offensive began.

Turkey said it captured more Kurdish-held villages in the border region, while a hospital in a Syrian town was abandoned and a camp of 4,000 displaced residents about 7 miles from the frontier was evacuated after artillery shells landed nearby.

Reflecting international fears that Turkey’s offensive could revive the Islamic State group, two car bombs exploded outside a restaurant in the Kurdish-controlled urban center of Qamishli, killing three people, and the extremists claimed responsibility. The city also was heavily shelled by Turkish forces.

Kurdish fighters waged intense battles against advancing Turkish troops that sought to take control of two major towns along the Turkish-Syrian border, a war monitor said.

The U.N. estimated the number of displaced at 100,000 since Wednesday, saying markets, schools and clinics also were closed.

Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a half-million people at risk in northeastern Syria.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump cleared the way for Turkey’s air and ground invasion after he announced his decision to pull American troops from their positions near the border, drawing swift bipartisan criticism that he was endangering regional stability and putting at risk the lives of Syrian Kurdish allies who brought down the Islamic State group in Syria.

Trump had said at the time that the estimated 1,000 U.S. troops were not in harm’s way from the Turkish offensive. Rami Abdurrahman, head of the war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the U.S. base was on a hill near the Kurdish-held town of Kobani, which had come under heavy Turkish fire..

Despite the criticism, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country “will not take a step back” from its offensive.