Turkey fires on U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Syria offensive
Aug 26, – Syrian rebels backed by Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes entered Jarablus, one of Islamic State’s last strongholds on the Turkish-Syrian border, on Wednesday.
Turkish troops fired on U.S.-backed Kurdish militia fighters in northern Syria on Thursday, highlighting the complications of an incursion meant to secure the border region against both Islamic State and Kurdish advances.
But 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 Islamic State as it is about eliminating the ultra-hardline Islamist group itself.
A Turkish security source said the army shelled the People’s Protection Units (YPG) south of Jarablus. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency described the action as warning shots.
Gunfire and explosions echoed around hills in the region on Thursday, a day after the incursion first began.
Some of the blasts were triggered as Turkish security forces cleared mines and booby traps left by retreating Islamic State militants, according to Nuh Kocaaslan, the mayor of Karkamis, which sits just across the border from Jarablus. He said three Turkish-backed Syrian rebels were killed but no Turkish troops.
Turkey, which has NATO’s second biggest armed forces, demanded that the YPG retreat to the east side of the Euphrates river within a week. The Kurdish militia had moved west of the river earlier this month as part of a U.S.-backed operation, now completed, to capture the city of Manbij from Islamic State.
Ankara views the YPG as a threat because of its close links to Kurdish militants waging a three-decade-old insurgency on its own soil. It has been alarmed by the YPG’s gains in northern Syria since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, fearing it could extend Kurdish control along Turkish borders and fuel the ambitions of Kurdish insurgents in Turkey.
Turkey’s stance has put it at odds with Washington, which sees the YPG as a rare reliable ally on the ground in Syria, where Washington is trying to defeat Islamic State while also opposing President Bashar al-Assad’s government in a complex, multi-sided, five-year-old civil war.
The Syrian Kurdish force is one of the most powerful militias in Syria and regarded as the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance formed last October to fight Islamic State.
Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik said the Kurdish PYD party, the political arm of the YPG, wanted to unite Kurdish-controlled cantons east of Jarablus with those further west. “We cannot let this happen,” he said.
“Islamic State should be completely cleansed, this is an absolute must. But it’s not enough for us … The PYD and the YPG militia should not replace Islamic State there,” Isik told Turkish broadcaster NTV.
Press journalist for HRO media – Ignacio Damigo reports.
Category: European Crises
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