Turkey Clashes With Kurds in Syria, Endangering U.S. Forces
August 29 2016 - 12:10AM
Dow Jones News
ISTANBUL—The death of a Turkish soldier in the newest
battlefront of the Syrian war is stoking tensions between two U.S.
allies, Turkey's military and Syrian Kurdish rebels, heightening
the risk to U.S. forces in the area and their common fight against
Islamic State.
Syrian monitoring groups said that at least 70 people were
killed over the weekend, mostly civilians, in the Turkish
operations. The Turkish military said they killed at least 25
"terrorists," and didn't comment on the reported civilian deaths,
except to say that commanders are taking all necessary measures to
protect noncombatants. It wasn't possible to independently verify
the Syrian casualty figures or the identities of those killed.
Turkey's military struck deeper into Syria with airstrikes and
artillery strikes on Sunday after the Turkish soldier died and
three others were wounded on Saturday when their tank unit came
under attack by Kurdish rebels, known as the YPG.
There was no comment from U.S. officials about the escalation of
fighting between the two sides—both of which are U.S. allies. It
was unclear what role, if any, the U.S.-led coalition against
Islamic State, of which Turkey is a member, had in the air campaign
over the weekend.
The clashes underscore the complexity of the coalition's
campaign to reverse Islamic State's territorial hold in Syria.
American special operations forces are embedded with the YPG and
earlier this month helped them oust Islamic State from the town of
Manbij, less than 20 miles from Saturday's hostilities. In general,
those U.S. special operations forces have close contact with their
Turkish counterparts, and they rely on Turkey for their rear supply
lines, according to people familiar with the situation.
The U.S. also supports the Turkish-led campaign launched last
week with Syrian Arab fighters who are rivals of the YPG. The
initial goal of the operation was to clear Jarablus, along the
Syria-Turkey border, of Islamic State positions and mop up any
fighters that escaped Manbij, which is approximately 20 miles
further south.
Turkish officials have said the timing of the offensive, known
as Operation Euphrates Shield, was related to the YPG's broken
promise given to the Americans and Turks that its units would
withdraw from Manbij once it was liberated from Islamic State and
allow local Arab-majority inhabitants to control the area. Instead
of retreating to the east side of the Euphrates River outside
Manbij, the YPG in recent weeks has moved to expand westward,
according to U.S. and Turkish officials.
Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist group and has a
declared national security objective to prevent the YPG from
linking up its disparate territorial holdings in Syria into a
larger autonomous region. Turkey sees the YPG as an armed affiliate
of a domestic Kurdish militant group known as the Kurdistan
Workers' Party, which has been fighting Turkish security forces for
decades with the aim of achieving its own autonomous state.
Turkey wants to install the friendly Arab rebels fighting in its
current operation along the Manbij-Jarablus corridor as a buffer
against Kurdish groups. An estimated 1,000 Syrian Arab rebels are
working with Turkey, which has at least 380 soldiers and 40 tanks
inside Syria. Turkey handed over control of Jarablus to local Arabs
after successfully ousting Islamic State last week.
On Saturday, some of the Syrian Arab units fighting with Turkish
armor units said they were trying to seize a number of villages
south of Jarablus when clashes with rival YPG units broke out.
Clashes reportedly were fiercest around the village of Amarneh,
around 5 miles south of Jarablus.
Two Turkish tanks came under attack by YPG fighters armed with
antitank rockets around 4 miles south of Jarablus, according to the
Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu. One soldier was killed—the
first Turkish soldier to die in the conflict—and three others
wounded, it said. It didn't give any more details about the
location of the attack.
Syrian groups that monitor fighting and civilian death tolls
reported casualties on at least two battlefronts south of Jarablus
as a result of the weekend clashes.
Aleppo24 said that at least 28 civilians died in Turkish
airstrikes, including people in Amarneh and a family from the
neighboring village of Saressat. It also said that at least 19
fighters had been killed.
A second monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, said at least 70 civilians were killed and wounded in
Turkish airstrikes and shelling in the village of Jab al-Kousa,
more than 8 miles south of Jarablus.
Turkish officials didn't respond to questions about locations of
their airstrikes inside Syria or how many bombing raids were
carried out. The state news agency reported that the Turkish
Military Joint Special Task Forces and coalition airplanes targeted
on Saturday an ammunition depot, barracks and a command center used
by "terror groups" south of Jarablus.
A statement from Turkey's military, reported by Anadolu, said
that the offensive was being carried out in accordance with
international law and the United Nations' mandate of self-defense.
Turkey has suffered several terror attacks at home this year
believed to have been carried out by Islamic State and the PKK.
Thomas Grove, Yeliz Candemir, Raja Abdulrahim and Noam Raydan
contributed to this article.
Write to Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 28, 2016 23:55 ET (03:55 GMT)
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