US military helps out as Turkey takes fight to IS-held Syrian town
American air cover, intelligence and advisers help Turkish forces roll into Islamic State stronghold of Jarablus, as pro-Ankara Syrian rebels seize village of Keklijah
The United States is providing Turkey’s military with air cover, intelligence and advisers in its offensive against the Islamic State (IS) group inside Syria, a senior US official said on Wednesday.
“We want to help the Turks get ISIL off the border” between the two countries, the official told reporters, using an alternative acronym for the IS group.
US advisers are communicating with the Turkish military about a plan to take the Syrian border town of Jarablus, a key IS stronghold that is a primary objective of the Turkish offensive, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The United States is “syncing up with them, our advisers are in the planning cell with them,” he said. “We’ll have close air support if there’s an operation” in Jarablus.
Jarablus, which lies on the western bank of the Euphrates River where it crosses from Turkey into Syria, is one of the last important IS-held towns between Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria. It is located 20 miles (33 kilometers) from the town of Manbij, liberated from IS by Kurdish-led forces earlier this month.
Jarablus lies across the border from Turkish Karkamis, whose residential areas have been hit by mortar fire from the Syrian side.
Taking Jarablus and IS-held town of al-Bab to the south would be a significant step toward linking up border areas under Kurdish control on both sides of the Euphrates.
Washington is also helping ensure that Kurdish fighters further south do not provoke a conflict with Turkish forces by moving north toward Jarablus, said the official, who was traveling with US Vice President Joe Biden. Biden arrived in Turkey on Wednesday for meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, in an effort to help improve relations strained by Turkey’s coup d’etat attempt last month.
The Turkish operation — named “Euphrates Shield” — began early Wednesday with Turkish artillery pounding dozens of IS group targets around Jarablus, according to the Turkish prime minister’s office.
Turkish tanks and special forces accompanied by pro-Ankara Syrian rebels then rolled across the border in an unprecedented operation to drive the IS group out of the town from which it has fired rockets into Turkey.
Pro-Ankara Syrian rebels took the village of Keklijah three miles (five kilometers) west of Jarablus and two miles from the border, Turkish state media said, in the operation’s first reported military success.
The United States has made it clear to the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed Kurdish and Arab alliance, that “we don’t and won’t support them going north, and they can’t without our air cover, so we’ve put a lid on them moving north,” the official went on.
“I think we’ve put a lid on the Turks’ biggest concern (which) gives us breathing space to make sure the Jarablus operation is done the right way.”
Pictures of the fighting showed fighters facing little resistance as they rolled into Jarablus, amid reports that the city was quickly taken over.
#FSA Rebels, backed by #Turkish special forces, fully liberated #Jarablus city pic.twitter.com/dIP9dxWC91
— 真回安然 ☪️ Cui Haoxin (@ismaelan) August 24, 2016
#Jarablus has fallen; FSA control former #ISIS HQ.
Phase II of operation will seek to connect with Al-Rai.
Phase III = to capture Al-Bab.
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) August 24, 2016
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the military operation aims to prevent threats from “terror” groups, including the Islamic State and the US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia affiliated with Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish rebels. Erdogan said the operation was in response to a string of attacks in Turkey, including a suicide bombing at a wedding party near the border that killed 54 people.
But Wednesday’s dual-purpose operation puts Turkey on track for a confrontation with the US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria, the most effective fighting force against IS in the area.
Turkey is concerned about the growing clout of the group, which it says is linked to Kurdish groups waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.
A senior official with Syria’s largest Kurdish group suggested Turkey will pay the price. Saleh Muslim, the co-president of the Democratic Union Party or PYD, tweeted that “Turkey is in Syrian Quagmire. Will be defeated as Daesh” will be. He used the Arabic language acronym for IS.
The Syrian government condemned Wednesday’s Turkish incursion into the Islamic State group-held border district of Jarablus as a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.
The foreign ministry said it “condemns the crossing of the Turkey-Syria border by Turkish tanks and armoured vehicles towards the town of Jarablus with air cover from the US-led coalition and considers it a flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty.
The Syrian opposition in exile, however, welcomed the intervention.
“Syria demands the end of this aggression,” the foreign ministry said.
“Any party conducting a battle against terrorism on Syrian soil must do so in coordination with the Syrian government and the Syrian army who have been fighting this war for five years.
“Chasing out IS and replacing them with terrorist groups backed by Turkey is not fighting terrorism.”
In sharp contrast, the Istanbul-based opposition National Coalition hailed the Turkish intervention and stressed that rebel forces were doing the fighting on the ground.
It issued a statement welcoming “the support of Turkey and the international coalition for the military operation in Jarablus,” in which “the rebels are carrying out the combat operations.”
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 Times of Israel Community.