Akgakale, Turkey: Kurdish forces battled Monday to cut a key Daesh supply line by seizing the border town of Tal Abyad, as terrified Syrians poured into Turkey to escape the fighting.
Forces from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) backed by Syrian rebels advanced on the southeastern edge of the border town overnight, backed by US-led strikes against Daesh terrorists, a monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Kurdish forces had seized the Mashur Tahtani area on the southeastern edge of Tal Abyad, with the US-led coalition carrying out at least five strikes overnight.
“The strikes are paving the way for the advance of the Kurdish and rebel forces,” Observatory chief Rami Abdul Rahman said.
He said at least 11 Daesh terrorists had been killed in clashes and US-led strikes overnight, along with three YPG forces.
Kurdish fighters and Syrian rebels began their advance on Tal Abyad on June 4, and have largely surrounded the Daesh stronghold, prompting thousands of civilians to flee the fighting.
About 16,000 people have fled into Turkey since last week, but the border has closed sporadically.
The flood of refugees has created chaos at times, with some cutting through the border fence or scrambling over loops of barbed wire in frustration at the delay in crossing.
Parents passed screaming children over one section of trampled fencing, and a mother grasped her baby by one arm, a pacifier dangling from its neck.
Kurdish forces have been chipping away at Daesh territory in Raqqa province - once completely under the jihadist group’s control - for around three months.
According to the Observatory, they have seized some 50 towns and villages in the province, gradually encircling Tal Abyad from three sides, with only the northern border area still open.
Winter said he expected Daesh to fight hard to keep the strategic town and to mine it heavily.
“I don’t think they’ll give up without a fight.”
The Kurdish advance has prompted criticism from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Syrian Kurdish forces fighting Daesh are tied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is listed as a “terrorist” group by Ankara and its Western allies.
Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Ankara-based TEPAV think tank, said Erdogan’s criticism was prompted by fears of rising “separatist sentiment” among Kurds in Turkey’s southeast.
“If Tal Abyad is seized by Kurds, after Kobane’s liberation, Kurds might emerge as a fighting force against Turkey,” Ozcan said.
The Kurdish advance has also prompted allegations of “ethnic cleansing” by some Syrian rebel groups who say YPG forces are expelling Sunni Arabs and Turkmen from the area.
Kurdish forces reject those allegations, saying they have only asked civilians to evacuate potential battle zones to avoid casualties.
