Turkish army, Syrian rebels escalate assault on IS-held city
Turkish military forces in the Syrian town of al-Bab
“With last night’s assault, Islamic State’s defences have been broken through and the advance is now continuing,” said a Turkmen Syrian rebel official, speaking from the Turkish city of Gaziantep.
Syrian government forces have advanced to within a few kilometres (miles) of al-Bab, which is located 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Aleppo. The separate campaign by the Syrian army has raised the risk of a clash with the Turkish military.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation that reports on the war, said the Turkish forces and their Free Syrian Army rebel allies had captured a hill on the western periphery of the city.
“We don’t know if Daesh (Islamic State) will be able to recover it, or if it is in a state of collapse,” Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said. The rebel official said Turkish reinforcements had been sent to the area a week ago.
Also on Wednesday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed in a phone call overnight to act jointly against Islamic State in the Syrian towns of al-Bab and Raqqa, both controlled by the militants, Turkish presidency sources said on Wednesday.
The two leaders discussed issues including a safe zone in Syria, the refugee crisis and the fight against terror, the sources said. They also said Erdogan had urged the United States not to support the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
Trump spoke about the two countries’ “shared commitment to combating terrorism in all its forms” and welcomed Turkey’s contributions to the fight against Islamic State, the White House said in a statement, but it gave no further details.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of U.S.-backed militias, started a new phase of its campaign against Islamic State in Raqqa on Saturday.
Turkey, a NATO ally and part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, has repeatedly said it wants to be part of the operation to liberate Raqqa but does not want the YPG, which is part of the SDF alliance, to be involved.