Turkey, Syrian Kurds on track for conflict in Syria

Battle along border heats up, with U.S. supporting the fight.

Turkey ANKARA, TURKEY — signaled Tuesday it would step up its engagement in the Syrian war, as Turkish-backed Syrian rebels massed along the border to assault one of the last Syrian frontier towns held by Islamic State militants.

Foreign Minister Mevlet Cavusolgu pledged “every kind” of support for operations against the Islamic State along a 62-mile stretch of Syrian frontier, putting the NATO member on track for a confrontation with U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria. The Kurds have been the most effective force against the Islamic State and are eyeing the same territory.

Cavusolgu said Turkey would support twin operations stretching from the Syrian town of Afrin in the northwest, which is already controlled by Kurdish forces, to Jarablus, in the central north, which is held by the Islamic State group.

“It is important that the terror organizations are cleansed from the region,” Cavusolgu said in a joint news conference with his Hungarian counterpart.

Turkish artillery shelled Jarablus for the second consecutive day as reports circulated that Turkish-backed Syrian rebels were preparing to storm the town, a vital supply line and the last border point that directly connects the Islamic State with Turkey and the outside world.

The latest developments have thrust the town into the spotlight of the ongoing Syrian civil war. Jarablus, which lies on the western bank of the Euphrates River where it crosses from Turkey into Syria, is one of the last important Islamic State-held towns standing between Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria.

Taking control of Jarablus and the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab to the south would be a significant step toward linking up border areas under Kurdish control east and west of the Euphrates River.

Turkey has vowed to fight the Islamic State at home and to “cleanse” the group from its borders after a weekend suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in southern Turkey killed at least 54 people, many of them children.

Ankara is also concerned about the growing power of U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces, who it says are linked to Kurdish groups waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

The Kurdish-led group known as the Syria Democratic Forces, or SDF, recaptured Manbij from the Islamic State earlier this month, triggering concerns in Ankara that Kurdish forces would seize the entire border strip with Turkey.

The United States says it has embedded some 300 special forces with the SDF, and British special forces have also been spotted advising the group.

Nasser Haj Mansour, an SDF official on the Syrian side of the border, said the fighters gathering in Turkey include “terrorists” as well as Turkish special forces. He declined to comment on whether the SDF would send fighters to the town, but an SDF statement said the Syrian Kurdish force was “prepared to defend the country against any plans for a direct or indirect occupation.”

The reports and rhetoric appeared to set up a confrontation between the SDF, the most effective U.S. proxy in Syria, and NATO ally Turkey.

Turkey has vowed to fight the Islamic State and ‘cleanse’ the group from its borders after a bombing killed 54.

IHA A Turkish army tank and another armored vehicle are stationed near the border with Syria, in Karkamis, Turkey, on Tuesday. Turkish media reports say Turkish artillery launched new strikes at Islamic State targets across the border.