Turkey’s military operation in Syria: All the latest updates
Heavy fighting continues as Turkey presses ahead with its military operation against Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria, now in its sixth day.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the offensive aims to remove the Kurdish-led forces from the border area and create a “safe zone” to which millions of Syrian refugees can be returned.
The move came after the United States announced it was withdrawing its troops from the area, leaving the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), its main ally in the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) armed group, without US military support.
Turkey’s defence ministry confirmed the first death among Turkey’s soldiers on Friday, while heavy clashes between Turkish forces and the SDF are under way in Syrian border towns.
Here are the latest updates:
Monday, October 14
Syrian army deploys to town near Raqqa, says state media
The Syrian army has deployed to the town of Tabqa near Raqqa, Syrian state television reported.
The move restores the state’s foothold in an area that is home to a major hydroelectric dam.
Backed by the United States, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battled for weeks to take Tabqa and the nearby dam from Islamic State in 2017.
The deployment followed an agreement between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led forces for the Syrian army to deploy into the area.
Erdogan says US Syria withdrawal ‘positive’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has welcomed the announcement a day earlier by Washington that it was pulling out 1,000 troops from northern Syria.
“This is a positive approach,” Erdogan told reporters, when asked about the statement from US Pentagon chief Mark Esper.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said he does not expect problems Syria’s main ally Russia, after Syrian government troops deployed to the country’s northeast [Reuters]
Erdogan signals imminent entry of Turkish-backed forces into Kobane and Manbij
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he does not expect there will be problems with President Bashar al-Assad’s main ally Russia, after Syrian government troops deployed to the country’s northeast.
“There would be no problem in Kobane. We are coordinating with Russians. We are decisive about Manbij. We will about to enter with the opposition forces,” said Erdogan.
The developments came after Damascus reached an agreement on Sunday night with the Kurdish-led forces controlling the region to deploy into the area to counter an attack by Turkey.
Syrian army deploys to town in country’s northeast after Kurdish deal
Syrian army troops have entered the town of Tal Tamer in northeastern Syria, state media reported.
The developments come after Damascus reached an agreement with the Kurdish-led forces controlling the region to deploy into the area to counter an attack by Turkey.
Tal Tamer is on a strategically important highway, the M4, that runs east to west. Turkish forces said they had seized the highway on Sunday.
Tel Tamer is 35 km (20 miles) southeast of Ras al-Ain, one of the focal points of the Turkish assault.
France: EU must consider Turkish arms embargo
France’s foreign minister has reiterated calls for European Union foreign ministers to condemn Turkey’s offensive in Syria.
Jean-Yves Le Drian also called for an arms embargo on Ankara and requested that the United States hold a meeting of the coalition against the Islamic State [ISIL].
“This offensive is going to cause serious humanitarian devastation,” Le Drian said as he arrived for a meeting with his EU counterparts in Luxembourg.
“France expects from this meeting … a specific demand to end the offensive … a firm position on arms exports to Turkey and … that the United States holds a meeting of the international coalition (against Islamic State),” he told reporters.
France says securing military in Syria as US begins withdrawal
France has said it was taking measures to ensure the safety of its military and civilians in northeastern Syria as the United States begins to withdraw forces from the area.
France has been one of the main allies in the US-led coalition fighting ISIL.
“Measures will be taken in the coming hours to ensure the safety of French military and civilian personnel present in the zone as part of the international coalition fighting Islamic State and humanitarian action,” the French presidency said in a statement after an emergency defence cabinet meeting. It did not provide further details.
A regional diplomatic source told Reuters on Thursday that Paris was preparing to pull out its several hundred special forces. They are operating closely with Kurdish-led forces, who are now the target of Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria. French aid workers are also in the zone.
Sunday, October 13
Kurds announce deal with Damascus
The Kurdish administration in northern Syria announced a deal with the Damascus government on a Syrian troop deployment near the border with Turkey to confront Ankara’s offensive.
“In order to prevent and confront this aggression, an agreement has been reached with the Syrian government… so that the Syrian army can deploy along the Syrian-Turkish border to assist the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),” the Kurdish administration said in a statement on its Facebook page.
In their statement the Kurds said that the agreement struck with the Damascus government “paves the way to liberate the rest of the Syrian cities occupied by the Turkish army such as Afrin”, a majority Kurdish enclave in the northwest.
Syrian Kurds ‘agree to allow Assad troops into Kobane’
General Ismet Sheikh Hasan, an official in Kurdish-controlled Kobane, told the Russian news agency RT that Syrian Kurds have reached an agreement with Russia to allow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops into Kobane.
Hassan, the minister of defense of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, said Russian and Syrian government troops could enter Kobane and Manbij by Sunday night to help secure the cities from a Turkish-led offensive in northern Syria.
“We agreed with the Russians and the [Assad] regime to enter Kobane tonight,” Hassan told RT.
“We did everything we could,” he said. “We have called upon the West [and] the Arab League but no one is coming to help, so we have no one other than ourselves to defend [Kobane].
“We agreed with the regime and the Russians to come to Kobane,” he added.
Neither the SDF nor Russia have confirmed such an agreement exists.
Civilians displaced in Turkey’s Syria offensive fear for future
Tens of thousands have fled border region as Turkey’s military pushes into Kurdish-held areas in northeastern Syria.
Akcakale, Turkey-Syria border – As fighting raged in Ras al-Ain on Saturday, with Turkey’s military claiming to be in control of the key Syrian border town, civilians continued to flee the violence.
Ahmed Naso, who fled his home in Ras al-Ain when Turkey launched its offensive on Wednesday, said airstrikes that day “came out of nowhere” and that people “immediately” began evacuating from nearby towns and villages.
“We don’t want war, we just want to live in peace,” he told Al Jazeera. “We’ve seen war before and we were forced to flee bombardment before.”
Along with his wife and three children, the 56-year-old said he is staying with relatives in Hasakah’s Salhiyeh neighbourhood, some 40km from Ras al-Ain, and is unsure if they will return to their home.
Tens of thousands flee
The United Nations has said that 100,000 civilians have been displaced since Wednesday. Most were forced to flee from the border towns of Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad, which have borne the brunt of Turkey’s aerial and ground offensive, as well as from a sting of rural villages between them. Some 70,000 of those who have fled their homes so far escaped towards Hasakah and its eastern districts.
Ankara says its offensive is aimed at removing Kurdish-led fighters from areas close to its border. It also says that it wants to establish a so-called “safe zone” on the Syrian side of the border where some of the millions of refugees residing in Turkey can be resettled.READ MORE
Turkey’s military operation in Syria: All the latest updates
The Turkish-led operation against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of rebels led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), was launched soon after the US announced it was withdrawing its troops from the northeastern region.
The SDF, which spearheaded the US-led campaign against ISIL, described Washington’s withdrawal announcement as a “stab in the back” but promised to “defend our land at all costs”.
Ankara considers the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The European Union and the United States, which both consider the PKK a “terrorist” organisation, have urged Turkey to exercise restraint, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed not to back down from the ongoing operation.
‘Verge of disaster’
Some of those who have fled to Hasakah fear that the town, which was already home to 140,000 internally displaced people (IDP), might not be able to accommodate the latest influx of civilians.
“Erdogan has been talking about this region for years, we didn’t expect him to act so suddenly,” Suwar al-Issa, who fled with his wife and son from Ras al-Ain, said.
“Thousands of families left and the area is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster,” the 26-year-old told Al Jazeera by phone from al-Aziziya district in Hasakah.READ MORE
US defence chief: We’re not abandoning the Kurds in Syria
“If this situation continues, thousands more will trickle in, but Hasakah can only take so much,” he said.
There are nearly five million people in the northeast region, including hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Syrians who fled government-led offensives in other parts of the war-torn country, according to local officials.
The population consists of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, as well as Syriac Christians – many of whom have been quick to offer a helping hand to those fleeing the border areas.
Mamosta Fawaz, a teacher in Tal Tamr, east of Hasakah, told Al Jazeera that civilians made their way to the village that lies nearly 40 kilometres from Ras al-Ain “from the first day of the operation”.
He said neighbourhoods quickly became overcrowded with some 200 families who were unsure if they should stay, or continue their journey southwards.
“I broke the locks on the door of one of the local schools where I teach, and began letting families in,” Fawaz told Al Jazeera.
“Soon after, people in the village’s neighbourhood began opening their doors to the families who fled bombardment,” he said.
Seeking refuge in Tal Tamr
More than 11,000 have arrived in the town of Tal Tamr, according to the latest figures collected by humanitarian actors in the area.
At least two schools in the area have been filled since Wednesday, as well as tens of homes. However, it is still not enough, Fawaz noted
“They’re anxious, they fear that the shelling will follow them to these areas as well,” he said, adding that there were not enough food supplies to cover everyone in the area.READ MORE
In Pictures: Civilians flee Turkey-Syria border
It has been especially difficult to accommodate their needs since the fighting impacted a water station servicing Hasakah, putting it out of service.
International NGOs and other aid organisations have meanwhile had limited access to the majority of the affected IDP areas, according to activists in the town of Qamishli.
One NGO on the ground has said people are continuing to arrive in Hasakah, especially its outskirts.
“The situation here is quite tense … There are a lot of people coming in,” Verena Lauble from Cadus, an independent aid organisation, told Al Jazeera.
“The local communities are helping prepare the schools – they are preparing blankets and non-food items,” Lauble said.
“They’re also trying to set up kitchens, deliver water and food, to support the incoming people,” she said, adding that hospitals were also preparing for casualties.