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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| SDF advance in Aleppo after clashes with Turkey-backed rebels |
| 2016-10-29 |
| [ARA News] Aleppo – Subsequent to clashes with Turkey-backed rebel groups, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) made new gains in Aleppo, military sources and activists reported on Friday. The SDF advanced in the vicinity of Azaz city in the northern countryside of Aleppo, and captured the towns of Gharnata and Tel Madiq. “This progress came after our forces hit the positions of Turkey-backed jihadists near Azaz,” Ahmed Salman, an SDF spokesman told ARA News. “The Sultan Murad group and other pro-Turkey factions were forced to withdraw from those areas under heavy blows by our forces on Friday,” the spokesman said. Supported by Turkey, rebel fighters of the Euphrates Shield, led by Sultan Murad Brigade, have recently took over a number of towns and villages in Aleppo countryside, in northern Syria. Although the Turkey-backed campaign was allegedly launched to combat ISIS, the majority of their attacks targeted the Kurdish forces and other SDF factions in Aleppo Governorate. “We won’t allow those mercenaries to gain more ground in Syria. They’re no different from ISIS,” the SDF official said. “We consider both the Euphrates Shield and ISIS terrorist groups, and we vow to fight them until liberating our region.” Ethnic Cleansing The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Thursday accused Turkey of ethnically cleansing whole villages in northern Aleppo Governorate and called for an investigation. The SDF also accused Turkey of bombing their positions to impede the campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS). Tensions between the SDF and Turkey-backed rebels grew after Turkey said it would take the cities of al-Bab and Manbij in northern Syria. Those tensions were manifest last week when Turkey’s Army and allied rebels attacked SDF positions near the cities of Tel Rifaat and Afrin. The SDF has accused Turkey and its Syrian allies of depopulating villages deemed to be intrinsically hostile. “Turkey, with its militias, emptied the population of al-Rai town and other nearby villages, displacing thousands of people and preventing them from returning,” SDF spokesman Shervan Darwish said. “Turkey accuses our forces of the ethnic cleansing. However, Turkey with its allied rebels are the ones committing criminal acts,” the Kurdish spokesman added. Darwish said that the groups being backed by Turkey are jihadist and therefore inherently intolerant. “Ideologically, the militias led by Turkey in Syria are a copy of ISIS. These groups are all affiliated with the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra in Idlib,” he said. The SDF spokesperson emphasized that the Turkey-backed rebels are also anti-Western, unlike the SDF. “These extremist groups expelled the US military from al-Rai, calling the West ‘infidel and Crusader,’ the same slogans used by ISIS,” Darwish said. “We call on the international community to visit the town of al-Rai and surrounding villages in order to investigate these crimes,” Darwish concluded. “The world should be more serious in the fight against the mentality of terrorism and extremism.” |
| Posted by:badanov |