SyriaLarge Turkish forces enter Syria to drive ISIS out of border area

Published 24 August 2016

Dozens of Turkish tanks have crossed into Syria earlier this morning as part of a massive operation – code named “Euphrates Shield” — to capture ISIS strongholds around the town of Jarablus and drive the militants out of the area. The land invasion, which also included hundreds of troops, follows hours of relentless airstrikes and artillery barrages against ISIS targets along the Syria-Turkey border. Among the targets hit in the bombardment were arms depots and oil tanks, and huge explosions lighted up the night sky.

Dozens of Turkish tanks have crossed into Syria earlier this morning as part of a massive operation – code named “Euphrates Shield” — to capture ISIS strongholds around the town of Jarablus and drive the militants out of the area.

The land invasion, which also included hundreds of troops, follows hours of relentless airstrikes and artillery barrages against ISIS targets along the Syria-Turkey border. Among the targets hit in the bombardment were arms depots and oil tanks, and huge explosions lighted up the night sky.

Turkish media reported that a group of Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army rebels had also entered the region as part of the offensive codenamed.

The New York Times reports that there were concerns that Turkey would use the broad offensive to attack its old nemesis — the Kurdish-led alliance Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is trained and equipped by the United States. The SDF has proved the most effective fighting force confronting ISIS, and the Kurdish fighters have already advanced to within a mile of Jarablus, located on the opposite bank of the Euphrates River.

The Kurdish elements in the SDF form the armed wing of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is the Syrian affiliate of the Turkish Kurdish PKK. Since 1982, the PKK, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU, has been fighting for Kurdish independence from Turkey since 1982. The PKK campaign has killed more than 40,000 Turks.

The SDF’s success on the battlefield – in recent months the groups has pushed ISIS out of strategic areas in northern Syria, including the city of Manbij – has boosted the U.S.-led coalition, but has been a cause of growing consternation and alarm in Turkey. The last thing Turkey wants to see is the YPG in control of territory now stretching almost the entire length of the Syrian border.

The SDF may be an essential element in the fight against ISIS, but the fact that it is affiliated with the YPG means that once the SDF has finished off ISIS, it may well turn its sights north and begin to collaborate with the PKK – the YPG’s sister organization — in the PKK’s campaign against the Turkish state.

On Wednesday, Turkey’s interior minister Efkan Ala indicated that a conflict between Turkey and the SDFis imminent, telling CNN Turk that the threat in Syria did not only emanate from ISIS but “other terrorist organizations.”

He pledged that the Euphrates Shield operation would continue until the “last threat against Turkey is eliminated.”

The operation includes not only the SDF, but also Islamist groups like the Faylaq Al-Sham militia and Nour al-Din al-Zenki movement (last month, fighters belonging to the latter group were shown on Aleppo TV as they decapitated a 10-year old child for being a “spy”).

Turkey launched the massive operation in the wake of a Saturday suicide bombing in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which killed more than fifty people who were celebrating a wedding. The Saturday bombing was the last in a series of deadly terrorist attacks, carried out by both ISIS and the PKK, against Turkish civilians and tourists.

Wednesday operation also saw the renewed use of the Turkish air force in the war in Syria. The last time the country’s air force was used in the war was in November, when Turkish jets t downed a Russian jet.

Turkish military sources told Reutersthat Turkish special forces were operating inside Syria while the bombardment continued. The Turkish ground forces’ mission was to “ensure border security and Syria’s national integrity,” the Turkish military said.

The reference to “Syrian national integrity” is the way Turkey expresses its opposition to the Syrian Kurdish regions breaking away from Syria to create an autonomous Kurdish state along the Turkish border.

“The Turkish Armed Forces and the International Coalition Air Forces have launched a military operation aimed at clearing the district of Jarablus of the province of Aleppo from the terrorist organization Daesh [ISIS],” said a statement from the Turkish prime minister’s office.

On Monday, the foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, vowed to “completely cleanse” the terrorist group from border regions.

Analysts say that the Turkish operation aims to cut off ISIS supply lines and smuggling routes for its trade in oil and looted artefacts. It also hopes to close more area of the Turkish-Syrian border to foreign fighters trying to join ISIS ranks.