Turkey’s armed forces have entered the battle in northern Syria against the Islamic State.
The Turkish military began intense shelling across the border early Wednesday morning, while Turkish and US-led coalition warplanes hit four targets near the key town of Jarablus. Tanks crossed the frontier.
A “senior official” has told Reuters that Turkish special forces moved into Syria to work with rebels. Daily Sabah, a Turkish newspaper close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, carried a similar assertion from “military sources”.
A military statement said 224 shells were fired on 63 positions.
Turkish forces have periodically shelled ISIS in response to the jihadists’ firing of rockets that have killed and wounds scores of people in southeastern Turkey. However, this morning’s operations appear to be part of a campaign to capture Jarablus and cut off access to the border for Islamic State fighters.
Ankara also wants to ensure that Jarablus is captured by Syrian rebels rather than the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The urgency of the objective grew earlier this month when the SDF took the city of Manbij, south of Jarablus, from ISIS.
A Syrian rebel with a Turkish-backed faction said fighters are waiting for the signal to enter Jarablus. A second rebel said around 1,500 fighters were now gathered at a location in Turkey for the operation.
Claimed video of a Free Syrian Army convoy on the way to Jarablus:
Turkey fears that Kurdish control of Jarablus will bolster the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK, allied with the main Syrian Kurdish militia YPG and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim hinted at an escalation of operations last weekend, saying that Turkey would be “more active” in Syria within the next six months.
Last year, the Turkish Government proposed that Jarablus would be the eastern anchor of a 98-km (61-mile) protected zone along the border, but the US dismissed the initiative.
Artur Rosinski‘s map:
REGIME DISCLOSES 4 MORE CHEMICAL WEAPONS SITES
The Assad regime has declared four chemical weapons facilities which it had not previously disclosed.
Sigrid Kaag, the special representative of the UN Secretary General, told the Security Council on Tuesday of three facilities for research and development and one is for production. She said that no new chemical agents have been associated with the sites.
However, Kaag said a fact-finding mission found chlorine had been used “systematically and repeatedly” in attacks as recently as this month.
Meanwhile, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, mandated in 2013 to monitor the regime’s handover of all chemical weapons stocks, has written in a confidential 75-page report that it has repeatedly found traces of deadly nerve agents in laboratories.
In a two-page summary of the report, OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said majority of 122 samples, taken at “multiple locations”, indicate “potentially undeclared chemical weapons-related activities”.
Uzumcu concluded that the many of the regime’s explanations for the presence of undeclared agents “are not scientifically or technically plausible, and…the presence of several undeclared chemical warfare agents is still to be clarified”.
The OPCW had said the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons facilities was expected to begin this month, and the first of the 12 facilities should be destroyed by the end of November.
Kaag’s statement came a day after Syria’s UN Ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, accused France of carrying out the August 2013 chemical attacks near Damascus that killed at least 1,400 people.
SPOKESMAN: “JABHAT AL-NUSRA NO LONGER NEEDS AL QA’EDA”
The Intercept has posted an interview with the spokesman of the jihadists of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra), Mostafa Mahamed, also known as Abu Sulayman al-Muhair.
In a striking passage, Mahamed indicates that last month’s declaration by JFS leader Abu Mohammad al-Joulani, ending formal allegiance to Al Qa’eda, is not just a symbolic move with little substantial political change.
At the time, JFS officials said that the renamed group still shared the ideological approach of Al Qa’eda, but Mahamed offers a different vieew, focusing on JFS as a Syrian organization:
By doing this, Jabhat Al-Nusrah was able to focus the efforts of the youth and channel their energies into an Islamic and justified, moral cause. The need for that no longer exists, however. The break was also required in order to fulfill our communal obligations to the Muslims in Syria. The practical implications of the split include the full independence we now enjoy, which gives us more freedom in decision-making. It also removed potential obstacles that stand in the way of a long hoped-for unification of ranks….People will differ in their views regarding the correct method to bring about change, and we do recognize the need to tolerate these differences and collaborate with all sincere parties working in the right direction. Leaving al Qaeda gives people more room to draw closer and allow for a freer, more comfortable environment for open discussion, without being stigmatized.
Pressed that the move was only for “cosmetic purposes”, Mahamed maintains the line that unity in Syria’s rebellion is the priority:
We genuinely believe it is time to move on from that period and work toward a more pragmatic option that will allow accommodation of a wider audience. Seeking ways to work with a now popular jihad and accommodate the diversity within the Islamic movement is a priority for our organization. In order for success to be achieved in Syria, different groups need to put aside smaller differences and work toward the common goal that Muslims aspire to.