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

Turkey’s and the US-backed coalition forces on Wednesday launched an operation to clear a Syrian border town from Daesh militants, the office of the Turkish prime minister said.
The operation began at 4 a.m. (0100 GMT), with Turkish artillery launching intense cross-border fire on the town of Jarablus, followed by Turkish warplanes bombing Daesh targets in the town, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
It was not immediately clear if any Turkish or Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces crossed the border to take part in the operation.
Haber Turk television and Hurriyet newspaper, citing unnamed military sources, said a ground offensive has not started. Hurriyet said efforts were underway to open a “passage” into the region. It quoted the sources as saying Turkish Howitzers and rocket launchers had fired 224 rounds at 63 targets within an hour and 45 minutes, and that the Turkish air raids started just after 6 a.m.
The Anadolu Agency said the operation aims to clear Turkey’s border of “terror organizations” and increase border security. It said the aim also is to “prioritize and support” Syria’s territorial integrity, prevent a new refugee wave and provide humanitarian aid in the region.
The operation was launched hours before Vice President Joe Biden was due in Ankara for talks that include developments in Syria.
The Turkish government said the border a rea had been declared a “special security zone,” and asked journalists not to try access it, citing safety concerns and threats posed by the Daesh.
The assault followed Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlet Cavusolgu pledge on Tuesday of “every kind” of support for operations against Daesh along a 100-kilometer (62-mile) stretch of Syrian frontier.
The development puts the NATO member on track for a confrontation with US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria, who have been the most effective force against Daesh and who are eyeing the same territory.
Cavusolgu said Turkey would support twin operations stretching from the Syrian town of Afrin in the northwest, which is already controlled by Kurdish forces, to Jarablus, in the central north, which is held by the Daesh group.
Earlier, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said some 500 Syrian rebels were massed on the Turkish side of the border in preparation for an assault, including local fighters from Jarablus. One rebel at the border told the BBC the number was as high as 1,500 fighters.
The Syrian town of Jarablus, which lies on the western bank of the Euphrates River where it crosses from Turkey into Syria, is one of the last important Daesh-held towns standing between Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria.
Located 20 miles (33 kilometers) from the town of Manbij, which was liberated from Daesh by Kurdish-led forces earlier this month, taking control of Jarablus and the Daesh-held town of Al-Bab to the south would be a significant step toward linking up border areas under Kurdish control east and west of the Euphrates River.
In recent days Turkey has increased security measures on its border with Syria, deploying tanks and armored personnel carriers. On Tuesday, residents of the Turkish town of Karkamis, across the border from Jarablus, were told to evacuate after three mortars believed to be fired by Daesh militants landed there, Turkey’s Dogan news agency said.
Turkey has vowed to fight Daesh militants at home and to “cleanse” the group from its borders after a weekend suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in southern Turkey killed at least 54 people, many of them children. Turkish officials have blamed Daesh for the attack.
Ankara is also concerned about the growing power of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces, who it says are linked to Kurdish groups waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.
The Kurdish-led group known as the Syria Democratic Forces, or SDF, recaptured Manbij from Daesh earlier this month, triggering concerns in Ankara that Kurdish forces would seize the entire border strip with Turkey. The US says it has embedded some 300 special forces with the SDF, and British special forces have also been spotted advising the group.
Syrian activists, meanwhile, said that hundreds of Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters were gathered in the Turkish border area near Karkamis in preparation for an attack on Jarablus.
Nasser Haj Mansour, an SDF official on the Syrian side of the border, said the fighters gathering in Turkey include “terrorists” as well as Turkish special forces. He declined to comment on whether the SDF would send fighters to the town, but an SDF statement said the Syrian Kurdish force was “prepared to defend the country against any plans for a direct or indirect occupation.”
The reports and rhetoric appeared to set up a confrontation between the SDF, the most effective US proxy in Syria, and NATO ally Turkey.
Abdel-Sattar Al-Jader, a rebel commander affiliated with the SDF was killed late Monday, shortly after broadcasting a statement announcing the formation of the so-called Jarablus Military Council and vowing to protect civilians in Jarablus from Turkish “aggression.”
Al-Jader had pledged to resist Turkish efforts to take control of the city and warned Ankara against further aggression. The Jarablus Military Council blamed the killing on Turkish security agents.
The Kurds’ outsized role in the Syrian civil war is a source of concern for the Syrian government as well. Fierce clashes erupted between the two sides over control of the northeastern province of Hasakah last week, and Syrian warplanes bombed Kurdish positions for the first time, prompting the US to scramble its jets to protect American troops in the area.
The Syrian government and the Kurds agreed on a cease-fire Tuesday, six days after the clashes erupted. The Kurdish Hawar News Agency said government forces agreed to withdraw from Hasakah as part of the truce.
Syrian state media did not mention any withdrawal, saying only that the two sides had agreed to evacuate the wounded and exchange detainees. Government and Kurdish forces have shared control of Hasakah since the early years of the Syrian war.

Source: Arab News