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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| Turkish forces shell Syrian Kurdish fighters | |
| 2016-08-26 | |
| [ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Turkish military shelled a group of Syrian Kurdish fighters south of the town of Jarablus on Thursday, a Turkish security source said, a day after ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... launched its first US-backed incursion into Syria. The shelling occurred near Manbij, an area controlled by the US-allied Kurdish militia the People's Protection Units (YPG), after the fighters did not heed a warning from Turkish forces, CNN Turk said. Jarablus lies about 40 km north of Manbij. President Tayyip Erdogan and senior government officials have made clear the aim of "Operation Euphrates Shield" is as much about stopping the Kurdish YPG militia seizing territory and filling the void left by ISIS as about eliminating the radical Islamist group itself. At least nine more Turkish tanks entered northern Syria earlier on Thursday as part of an operation aimed at driving ISIS out of the area around Jarablus and preventing Kurdish militia fighters from seizing territory, Rooters witnesses said. A senior Turkish official said there were now more than 20 Turkish tanks inside Syria and that additional tanks and construction machinery would be sent in as required. "We need construction machinery to open up roads ... and we may need more in the days ahead. We also have armored personnel carriers that could be used on the Syrian side. We may put them into service as needed," the official said. The deployments are part of "Operation Euphrates Shield", in which Syrian rebels backed by Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes on Wednesday entered Jarablus, one of ISIS’s last strongholds on the Turkish-Syrian border, in Turkey’s first major US-backed incursion into its southern neighbor. Kurdish Syrian force withdraws In an interview with Turkey’s NTV channel on Thursday, Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik said Turkish-backed rebels were "cleansing" Jarablus of ISIS, who had controlled the strategic town. He also said that the Syrian rebels have taken control of Jarablus from ISIS fighters to prevent Kurdish forces from seizing a new swathe of territory on Turkey’s southern border. Turkey sees the YPG, the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish party PYD, as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency in Turkey’s southeast. On the same day, a front man for the US-led coalition against ISIS said on Thursday that the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have withdrawn across the Euphrates river to prepare for "the eventual liberation" of Raqqa, a city held by ISIS. "The Syrian Democratic Forces have moved east across the Euphrates to prepare for the eventual liberation of Raqqa," the front man for Operation Inherent Resolve wrote on his Twitter feed. The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia also said on Thursday its forces taking part in an operation to capture the city of Manbij from ISIS had returned to their bases after the mission was successfully completed. Turkey had demanded on Wednesday that the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, a critical part of the SDF, return to the east bank of the river. Turkish officials said Syrian Kurdish forces have started withdrawing east of the Euphrates River. The Turkish officials were quoting US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... , who relayed the news in a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart.
350 Turkish soldiers taking part in ‘Euphrates Shield’ op, CNN Türk reports [Hurriyet] A total of 350 soldiers from the Turkish Armed Forces are taking part in the “Euphrates Shield” operation launched on Aug. 24 to back Syrian rebels’ bid to clear the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from territories bordering Turkey, CNN Türk reported on Aug. 25. Some 200 soldiers from mechanized units and 150 Special Forces soldiers are involved in the operation, which is still ongoing after it secured its first aim of liberating the Syrian town of Jarablus from ISIL, some 14 hours after the operation began. After the capture of Jarablus, Syrian rebels reportedly carried out careful explorations of the town to clear mines and explosive traps set up by ISIL militants before their retreat. Regarding recent that additional Turkish tanks had entered Syrian territory on Aug. 25, CNN Türk reported that the tanks had only entered up to two kilometers inside Syria before returning to Turkish territory, with the aim of maintaining border security. Along with the coalition air support, 17 Turkish planes are reportedly taking part in the operation, including 11 F-16s, two F-16s, a tanker aircraft for the jets’ fuel delivery, one AWACS, and two rescue planes. It remains unclear when the operation is set to be completed. | |
| Posted by:Fred |