Turkey Launches Armed Incursion into Northern Syria

Wednesday afternoon, after meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden, Turkish President Reccept Tayyip Erdogan announced that Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish artillery and tanks, took the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, on the Euphrates River, from ISIS. According to a Reuters report, the operation began at 4 AM local time, with US and Turkish air strikes against ISIS targets. The air strikes were apparently followed by the insertion of Turkish special forces into Syria and Turkish artillery strikes across the border. Turkish tanks reportedly crossed the border some hours later.

“The aim of the operation is to ensure border security and Syria’s territorial integrity while supporting the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State,” one military source told Reuters. The military operation was aimed at clearing the Turkish border of “terrorist elements,” halting a new wave of refugee flows, and delivering humanitarian aid to civilians in the region, the last significant town held by the jihadist group on the border with Turkey, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, according to Hurriyet. It also aimed at “prioritizing and supporting Syria’s territorial integrity,” it added.

The Turkish assault began hours before Biden arrived in Ankara to meet with Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. While the main agenda item for Biden’s visit is the Turkish demand for the extradition of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen for his alleged involvement in the failed July 15 coup attempt, the US relationship with the Syrian Kurdish PYD and its armed wing, the YPG, is also high on the list of Turkish concerns. Biden therefore promised that the YPG, which played a key role in the recent liberation from ISIS of Manbij, Syria, would not be allowed to stay west of the Euphrates River.

“They cannot and will not — under no circumstances — get American support if they do not keep that commitment,” Biden said during a joint press conference with Yildirim, yesterday, reports Hurriyet.

Both the Kurds and the Syrian Foreign Ministry have denounced the Turkish incursion as an act of aggression. A source in the Foreign Ministry told SANA that Syria condemns the incursion as a blatant violation of Syrian sovereignty and affirms that fighting terrorism isn’t done by ousting ISIS and replacing it with other terrorist organizations backed directly by Turkey. PYD leader Salih Muslim, in a twitter posting this morning, declared that  “Turkey is in Syrian Quagmire. will be defeated as Daish.”