Clashes in Syria have displaced 66,000

At least four forces fight for territory taken from Islamic State in north

Five months of multisided clashes in Syria’s crowded northern battlefield have displaced some 66,000 people, a UN humanitarian agency said Sunday.

It was one day after the U.S. bolstered Kurdish-led forces with a deployment of armoured vehicles amid preparations for a push toward the Islamic State group’s de facto capital.

Besides the autonomous Kurdish-led forces, Turkish, Syrian government and Syrian opposition fighters have all been jostling for territory formerly held by the Islamic State group near the Turkish-Syrian frontier.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Syrian Kurdish PKK party, are the current front runners in the race to Raqqa, the IS capital. They are now stationed eight kilometres north of the Euphrates River city and supported by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and a deployment of some 500 U.S. Special Forces operators. The Pentagon has said they are working in an advisory capacity.

But Turkey, a U.S. ally through NATO, says the PKK is an extension of the Kurdish insurgency inside its own borders and has classified the party as a terror organization. It has objected strongly over the SDF offensive and vowed, too, to throw the Kurdish-led forces in Manbij — the SDF’s westernmost flank — back over the banks of the Euphrates. This would disrupt the Raqqa campaign.

There are Turkish forces stationed in al-Bab, 40 kilometres southwest of Manbij. The threats prompted the SDF to ask Russia and the Syrian army to establish a buffer between Manbij and al-Bab.

With uncertainty building, the U.S. deployed a number of armoured vehicles to its allies in Manbij, the Syrian Kurdish Rudaw news agency reported Saturday.

Operation spokesperson U.S. Colonel John Dorrian confirmed the deployment on Twitter. He said it was mean to “deter aggression and keep focus on defeating ISIS.”

The Syrian military, meanwhile, has driven east of Aleppo to draw a front with the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces.