ANKARA: Turkey said on Tuesday that the one-time terrorist bastion of Al Bab in northern Syria was “largely” under the control of Ankara-backed Syrian rebels after months of clashes with jihadists.

“Al Bab has largely been taken under control finally,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told his ruling Justice and Development Party lawmakers in Ankara, without giving further details.

Since December, Turkish forces supporting opposition fighters have fought terrorists from the Daesh group to take control of Al Bab.

Turkey launched an ambitious operation dubbed “Euphrates Shield” in Syria last August to rid its border of Daesh elements and halt the advance of the Kurdish militia.

Yildirim said Ankara’s aim was to “prevent terrorist organisations opening corridors” where they could reach Turkey.

“From the start, our efforts have not been for nothing, we have reached our aim.”

After a lightning advance retaking several towns close to its border, the operation faced the biggest challenge in the campaign so far with dozens of Turkish soldiers killed in the space of a few weeks.

But at the weekend, Ankara-backed fighters entered the town centre and the official news agency said by Monday, they had recaptured 40 per cent of the town.

Hurriyet daily reported that rebels and President Bashar Al Assad’s forces created a security corridor to avoid clashes in the battle to capture the flashpoint town.

Al Assad’s forces have pushed towards the town from the south, leaving Daesh fighters completely encircled.

If confirmed, it would mark a rare case of contact in the conflict between the Damascus regime and the rebels seeking to oust it.

The Hurriyet newspaper likened the zone to the demilitarised “Green Line” in Cyprus between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities.

The corridor has been set up in the south of Al Bab and varies in width from 500 metres to 1,000 metres (yards), Hurriyet said, adding that occasional communication took place between the rival sides.

There has been intense fighting between Turkey-backed rebels and Daesh terrorists to take full control of the northern Syrian town.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday the targets after Al Bab would be Manbij — a former bastion of Daesh that is now under the control of US-backed, Kurdish-led militia — and the de-facto jihadist capital of Raqa, if “we take a joint step with (US-led) coalition forces”.

Turkey has been an implacable foe of Al Assad since the start of Syria’s nearly six-year civil war, backing the rebels who sought to oust him from power.

But in the past few months, Turkey’s relations with Al Assad’s main ally Russia have warmed dramatically and Moscow and Ankara have been working together to bring peace to Syria.