Turkey in cross-border operation to free IS-held Syrian town

Turkish tanks and fighter jets – supported by US-led coalition aircraft – had been firing on IS targets across the border in the Syrian town of Jarablus since early Wednesday as part of an operation named Euphrates Shield.

Earlier in the day, Turkish military, backed by worldwide coalition airstrikes, launched an operation involving fighter jets and tanks to drive IS militants out of the Syrian border town of Jarabulus.

The US is providing Turkey’s military with air cover, intelligence and advisers in its Syria offensive against the Islamic State group (IS), a senior US official said Wednesday.

Turkish special forces, aided by American military advisers, US drones and Turkish artillery units, moved into northern Syria before dawn as part of the coordinated campaign to push Islamic State out of a strategic town on the Euphrates River, officials said.

White and grey plumes of smoke rose from atop the hills of Jarablus, visible from the Turkish town of Karkamis across the border. Just four days ago, 54 people were killed by a suicide bombing at a wedding in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep, an attack Turkey blamed on ISIS.

The Free Syrian Army recently took control of Jarabulus, where one FSA member was killed. The U.S. -backed Syria Democratic Forces alliance (SDF), including the YPG, captured the city of Manbij, just south of Jarablus, from ISIS earlier this month.

Speaking at a press conference in Ankara on Wednesday, Biden says Kurdish forces “must move back across the Euphrates River”.

In a visit to the Turkish parliament, which was bombed during a failed military coup on July 15, Biden warned the YPG that they would lose USA backing if they failed to meet the demand of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey to stay west of the Euphrates River and away from Jarablus.

The offensive launched Wednesday put Turkey on track for a possible confrontation with US -backed Kurdish fighters, who have been the most effective force against ISIS in northern Syria.

Mr Biden arrived in Ankara on Thursday for talks aimed at calming relations that have grown strained since the failed coup last month and what Turkey perceives as Washington’s reluctance to hand over the alleged instigator, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania.

Turkey’s incursion into Syria comes because it feared the YPG would seize Jarabulus first.

Turkey has voiced concern at the growing power of the Syrian Kurds, who it says have links to Kurdish rebels waging an insurgency in southeast Turkey.

Turkey’s incursion is its first into Syria since February 2015, when hundreds of Turkish troops crossed the border to move the relics of the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire.

The source stressed that Syria condemns this blatant violation of its sovereignty and affirms that fighting terrorism isn’t done by ousting ISIS and replacing it with other terrorist organizations backed directly by Turkey.

Strikes were conducted against ISIS fighters and mortar positions, the official said. YPG fighters are already well installed in northeastern Syria.

Turkish government officials could not immediately confirm the report.

The news agency said the operation aims to clear Turkey’s border of “terror organizations” and increase border security, as well as “prioritize and support” Syria’s territorial integrity.

“The prime minister’s office said a border area in Turkey had been declared a s” pecial security zone”, and asked journalists not to try access it, citing safety concerns and threats posed by the IS.

Several analysts have complained that neither Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump has a policy to deal with the Syrian civil war.

He said that work to open a passage for ground forces was underway.