Turkey says it could seize ISIS stronghold with US

Pentagon and White House officials have routinely said American troops are not involved in ground combat and remain behind the forward line of troops in Iraq and Syria.

A spokesman for the US -led military campaign against Islamic State said the use of the patches was unauthorized and inappropriate, and the soldiers had been asked to remove them.

“The situation has been corrected, and we have communicated to our allies that such conduct was inappropriate”, he added.

“Wearing those YPG patches was unauthorized and it was inappropriate and corrective action has been taken, and we have communicated as much to our military partners and our military allies in the region”, said Col. Steve Warren, the USA military spokesman in Baghdad.

In an expansion of the operation, the SDF is now targeting the IS-held area of Tabqa, some 60 km (40 miles), to the west of Raqqa city. “The US sees the YPG as a local actor who can be cooperated with in Syria”.

Speaking in Antalya late Sunday, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that operation could “easily advance to Raqqa”, the main IS bastion in Syria.

Cook also faced a barrage of questions about whether or not the special operations forces were on the front lines, since in the past US officials have stressed that American troops are not at the battlefront.

Warren says while USA special operations forces have historically and routinely worn the insignia of foreign troops they are working with, this case was not appropriate due largely to political sensitivities.

“The patches were in fact not authorized”.

“The correction’s been made”, he said.

“We say okay, a second front should be opened but not with the PYD”, he said, referring to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the YPG’s political wing. He did not specify what manner of “corrective action” was involved. Warren had previously stated that the United States operatives were focused on providing advice and assistance “particularly to the Syrian Arab component of the forces”.

He said, “The ones who say: “We will continue to support the YPG, it is not the PKK”,. you are on the wrong side”.

“The goal here is to destroy and degrade Daesh and to remove them from the battlefield”, he said.

The YPG is the armed wing of the PYD – the Syrian offshoot of PKK, which is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.

A USA military spokesman responded by saying that the use of the patches had been “unauthorized and inappropriate”, adding the soldiers had been asked to remove them.

“The internet is full of pictures, the majority of them either fake or wrong”, he said.

Turkey has proposed to join the United States in a special operation in Syria only if Kurdish fighters are excluded from the offensive. Only one. And that was yesterday.

The attacking SDF forces must also cross the Euphrates river to reach Tabqa town, further complicating any assault, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said.