KARKAMIS, Turkey — Turkish tanks backed by fighter jets and special forces rolled into Syria Wednesday in an unprecedented operation to drive Daesh (the so-called IS) militants out of a key Syrian border town.
The air and ground offensive also involving Syrian fighters — the most ambitious launched by Ankara in the Syria conflict — is aimed at clearing militants from the town of Jarabulus directly opposite Turkey.
But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized the operation was also targeting Kurdish militia fighters strongly opposed by Ankara — but backed by the US as a key ally against Daesh — who had also been closing in on Jarabulus.
The operation — named “Euphrates Shield” — began at around 4:00 am (0100 GMT) with Turkish artillery pounding dozens of Daesh targets around Jarabulus, the Turkish prime minister’s office said.
Turkish F-16 fighter jets, backed by US-led coalition war planes, also hit targets inside Syria.
An AFP photographer saw around a dozen Turkish tanks cross into Syria in support of Syrian opposition fighters who had also crossed and 1,500 of whom were now in the area according to state media.
Tensions had flared across the Syria-Turkey border on Tuesday following rocket fire from Jarabulus which landed inside Turkey.
Turkish state media said the operation rapidly notched up its first success with the Syrian fighters taking from Daesh the village of Keklijah five kilometers (three miles) west of Jarabulus.
As well as tanks, the AFP photographer in the area of Karkamis opposite Jarabulus saw several smaller military vehicles believed to be carrying the pro-Ankara Syrian rebels.
Security sources quoted by Turkish television said a small contingent of special forces had traveled into Syria to secure the area before a possible larger ground operation.
Turkish authorities had late Tuesday ordered the evacuation of Karkamis for safety reasons, raising expectations that an offensive was imminent.
Airstrikes by Turkish jets also echoed through the skies, the photographer said. The effects of one raid on the northern outskirts of Jarabulus were easily visible, sending up a cloud of black smoke and sand.
Rebel commander Ahmad Othman told AFP in Beirut by phone that the first stage of the operation had been completed and his forces were now one kilometer from Jarabulus.
“The second stage will begin in a few hours,” he said.
Turkey will want to show with the operation that it is serious about taking on Daesh, which has been blamed for a string of attacks inside the country, the latest a weekend attack on a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep that left 54 people dead, many of them children.
Ankara was long accused of turning a blind eye to the rise of Daesh in Syria and even aiding its movements to-and-fro across the border, claims the government had always vehemently denied.
The launch of the offensive comes as US Vice President Joe Biden visits Ankara to meet Erdogan, with agreeing a unified strategy on Syria set to be a crucial issue.
Biden is likely to face expressions of alarm from Turkey about the activities inside Syria of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Washington sees as an ally but Ankara regards as a terror group.
Saleh Moslem, the head of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the YPG’s political wing, tweeted that Turkey was now in the “Syrian quagmire” and would be “defeated” like Daesh.
But a senior US administration official said Washington had already been “syncing up” with Turkey for the operation and US advisors had been in a planning cell.
Crucially, the official said Kurdish-dominated forces had stopped moving north toward Jarabulus. “So I think we have put a lid on the Turks’ biggest concern.”
Erdogan said the operation was aimed against both Daesh and PYD — “terror groups that continuously threaten our country in northern Syria”.
“We have said ‘enough is enough’... This now needs to be resolved,” he said.
