REUTERS - Turkish air
strikes pounded a group of Kurdish fighters allied to a U.S.-backed militia in
northern Syria overnight, highlighting the conflicting agendas of
NATO members
Ankara and Washington in an increasingly complex battlefield.
The jets
targeted positions of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in three
villages, northeast of the city of Aleppo, that the SDF had captured from
Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said late on Wednesday.
The Turkish
military confirmed its warplanes had carried out 26 strikes on areas recently
taken by the Kurdish YPG militia, the strongest force in the SDF, and that it
had killed between 160 and 200 combatants.
The
British-based Observatory monitoring group reported a much lower toll of 11
dead and dozens wounded. Officials of the Kurdish-led administration that
controls much of northeastern Syria said dozens had been killed.
A senior U.S.
defense official said the groups struck by Turkish jets were not themselves
U.S.-backed but were "close to and friendly with" the fighters
Washington is working with.
Asked in the
light of the air strikes whether he was concerned the U.S. alliance with Turkey
was unraveling, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a news conference at the Pentagon:
"With
respect to Turkey, our partnership is very strong in the counter-ISIL
campaign." ISIL is an acronym for Islamic State. "We’re working with
the Turks now very successfully to help them secure their border area,"
added Carter, who was due to visit Turkey on Friday.
The United
States has backed the Kurdish-led forces in their fight against Islamic State,
infuriating Ankara, which sees the YPG as an extension of Kurdish PKK militants
who have waged a three-decade insurgency in southeastern Turkey.
Turkey fears
the YPG will try to connect three de facto autonomous Kurdish cantons that have
emerged during the five-year war to create a Kurdish-run enclave in northern
Syria, stoking the separatist ambitions of Kurds on its own soil.
Five shells fired
from the YPG-controlled Afrin region of Syria, west of where the air strikes
hit, landed in empty land in Turkey's Hatay province on Thursday, triggering
retaliatory howitzer fire from Turkey, the Turkish military said.
The Turkish
army bombarded villages near Afrin overnight, the pro-Kurdish Anha news agency
said. Footage purportedly showed smoke billowing out from the Syrian side of
the border. Anha said there were casualties from the shelling by what it
described as at least 44 howitzers.
The Turkish
army also said 21 PKK militants had been killed in operations in Hakkari
province in Turkey's southeast, where violence has flared since the PKK
abandoned a ceasefire in 2015.
"WE WILL
NOT WAIT"
The air
strikes, the heaviest against the YPG since Turkey launched a military
incursion into Syria two months ago, came hours after President Tayyip Erdogan
warned that Ankara could act alone in rooting out its enemies abroad.
"From now
on we will not wait for problems to come knocking on our door, we will not wait
until the blade is against our bone and skin, we will not wait for terrorist
organizations to come and attack us," Erdogan said in a speech on
Wednesday.
The
Observatory named the bombed villages as al-Hasiya, Um al-Qura and Um Hosh.
They lie around 30 km (19 miles) west of al-Bab, the last big town held by
Islamic State militants in northwest Syria after a series of battlefield
reverses.
Turkey, a
major backer of the insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad, entered the
Syrian conflict in August, using its armor and air power to help Free Syrian
Army rebel groups take territory near the border held by Islamic State.
But its
intervention also aimed to prevent the SDF from gaining more ground. The SDF
has been moving eastwards toward al-Bab, which Turkish-backed rebel forces also
want to capture from Islamic State.
The Turkish
military said its air strikes had destroyed nine buildings, one armored vehicle
and four other vehicles that belonged to the YPG.
REUTERS
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