Rocket attack on Turkish tanks in Syria kills soldier, wounds three

Turkey flexed its military muscle across the border in war-torn Syria this week by helping rebels retake the border town of Jarablus from ISIS, marking a decisive win for the Free Syrian Army.

The fighting also saw the first fatality of a Turkish soldier in Syria, according state media.

Moreover, non-Kurdish SDF brigades such as the Seljuk brigade, Jaysh Thuwar, and Northern Sun Brigade that fought in Manbij said on Saturday they would join the fight against Turkish-backed rebel groups.

In Geneva on Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov said they had cleared key obstacles in ceasefire talks but had yet to reach a final deal.

Earlier an SDF-affiliated group said Turkish airstrikes targeted its bases and civilian homes south of Jarablus.

On Saturday, the last rebel fighters were evacuated from Daraya just outside the Syrian capital Damascus, under a plan to end a brutal four-year siege of the town that brought the population to the brink of starvation.

“The general command of the Kurdish forces of People’s Protection Units (YPG) on Saturday accused Turkey-backed rebels and the Turkish army of attacking Kurdish positions near Efrin, in the Raju district, adding that ‘Turkish attacks against federal Rojava and northern Syria region have continued”.

The attack is indicative of the complicated situation in Syria, where North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey is allied with the USA against Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the U.S. also supports the Kurds fighting Islamic State but who also support their ethnic brethren mounting an insurgency in Turkey. This while the Kurdish-led forces want to take al-Bab to open a corridor to the besieged town of Efrin [also known as Afrin] in northwestern Syria.

Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels capture Jarablus from the Islamic State group, and to contain Kurdish-led forces.

The declaration comes a day after the evacuation of almost 5,000 residents and fighters from the suburb began.

Turkey sees the YPG and PYD as “terror groups” intent on carving out an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria although the United States works with them in the fight against IS.

Thousands of civilians have also left under the agreement, having endured years of constant shelling and shortages of essentials. A news report on ANHA, the news agency for the semi-autonomous Kurdish areas, said local fighters destroyed a Turkish tank and killed a number of fighters in an attack by the Turkish military and allied groups on Amnarneh.

Some 280 rebels, their families and wounded arrived Saturday morning in a village in the northern rebel-held Idlib province.

The Jarablus Military Council says the airstrikes Saturday on their bases in Amarneh village marked an “unprecedented and unsafe escalation” and came after Turkish artillery shelled the positions the day before.

Ankara says that the Kurdish YPG militia has failed to stick to a promise to return across the Euphrates River after advancing west this month.

The rebels said they were forced to give up the town, which was one of the first to rise up against the government, accusing Damascus of using “starve or surrender” tactics.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the airstrikes. Clashes were fiercest with the Kurdish-allied forces over the village of Amarneh, eight kilometers (five miles) south of Jarablus. It has demanded the YPG, which makes up the bulk of the SDF and has been one of the most effective US ally in the fight against IS, withdraw to the east bank of the Euphrates River.

“Our concern has been the fact that the YPG has a proven track record of forcibly displacing non-Kurds”, a senior Turkish official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity as per protocol.