Ankara: Turkish forces have entered a Daesh stronghold in northern Syria and have begun clearing it of terrorists, according to a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Although it’s still too early to declare the town of Al Bab entirely “secured,” the operation will lay the groundwork for an eventual assault on Raqqa, Daesh’s declared capital in Syria, spokesman Ebrahim Kalin said in a televised interview with NTV on Wednesday.
A rebel commander in the Euphrates Shield forces said fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), working with Turkish commanders, were moving forward from territory near the western gates of the city they had stormed on Wednesday.
“The battles began a short while ago to complete what had been achieved yesterday,” said a commander of a leading FSA group fighting in Al Bab, who requested anonymity.
Northeast of Al Bab, they added, they also regained control of two key villages they had repeatedly been pushed out of in past fighting by a succession of suicide attacks.
The Turkish military said on Thursday they had killed 44 militants in aerial and artillery strikes and clashes in northern Syria.
The advance into Al Bab threatens an important Daesh stronghold, whose fall would deepen Turkish influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone.
Syrian government forces have also advanced on Al Bab from the south, bringing them close to their Turkish and rebel enemies in one of the most complex battlefields of the six-year-old conflict. But Turkey said international coordination was under way to prevent clashes with the Syrian forces.
Turkish commanders gave the green light for a large-scale push into Al Bab after the Syrian army and its allies made rapid gains that brought them to its southern outskirts, another rebel official told Reuters.
“Turkish commanders took a decision with us to speed the operation after the regime came too close to the city,” he said.
Al Bab has been a major target of a Turkish offensive launched in northern Syria last August to drive Daesh away from the border and prevent further gains by US-backed Kurdish militia that are also fighting the terror group.
The city is just 30 kilometres from the Turkish border.
Turkish forces and their allies have however faced fierce resistance from the militants, for whom the city has been a major source of funding and a major economic hub.
Turkey, which launched operations in Al Bab two months ago with allied Syrian rebel forces, has long proposed its own plans to capture Raqqa, but the Obama administration didn’t consider them, Kalin said.
During a phone call between Erdogan and US President Donald Trump earlier Wednesday, the two sides agreed to study further cooperation against Daesh in Syria, Kalin said. The issue will be discussed when CIA director Michael Pompeo meets Turkish spy chief Hakan Fidan later this week, he said.
The Turkish military launched a ground campaign in Syria in August to push Daesh away from its border and to prevent Syrian Kurdish fighters from linking enclaves they control in the east and west.
