Turkey ramping up its offensive against Kurdish fighters in Syria

BEIRUT — Turkey escalated its offensive Thursday against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, pounding them with airstrikes and artillery, and complicating the battle against the Islamic State group by Ankara and Washington, both NATO allies.

In the fight for Aleppo, meanwhile, the Syrian military used a lull in violence to urge residents and rebels to evacuate the besieged opposition-held part of the city.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said as many as 200 members of the Kurdish-led forces were killed in Syria’s Aleppo province by the Turkish bombing and shelling.

A senior commander with the main Syria Kurdish militia confirmed the Turkish attack on his forces north of Aleppo but disputed the casualty toll, saying that no more than 10 fighters were killed.

Like in Iraq, where Kurdish fighters are at the forefront of the offensive to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State group, Kurdish forces in Syria also have been battling IS militants and made significant territorial gains in Aleppo province. That has dismayed Turkey, which is trying to prevent an expansion of Kurdish influence in Syria.

“We will not back down,” said senior Kurdish commander Mahmoud Barkhadan of the People’s Protection Units. “We are fighting Daesh. Why are they striking at us?”

Barkhadan accused Turkey of aiding IS militants by turning the fight into a Turkish-Kurdish battle.

The pause in the fighting in Aleppo is part of a humanitarian cease-fire announced by Russia in the contested city to allow for the evacuation of civilians and fighters, as well as the wounded. Rebels have rejected the offer to evacuate, saying it wasn’t serious.

“Talk of fighters or nonfighters leaving is denied and groundless,” said Ammar Sakkar, spokesman for Fastaqim, one of the largest rebel groups in Aleppo.