Turkish troops, Syria rebels enter IS-held town: Monitor
Turkish troops and Syrian rebels on Saturday
entered the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab in northern
Syria, as government forces moved closer to the jihadist bastion, a monitor said.
“Turkish forces and allied rebels in the Euphrates Shield
campaign entered the western edge of the town and took control of a number of
areas,” the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The monitor said heavy clashes were underway with
IS in the town, which is the jihadist group’s last stronghold in the northern
province of Aleppo. The town is the
target of two competing assaults, with the Turkish-led “Euphrates Shield”
campaign advancing from the north, east and west, while Syrian government
troops attack from the south.
It has been besieged since Monday, when Syrian troops severed a road leading into the town from the south. By Friday, government forces were just 1.5 kilometres (less then a mile) from the southern outskirts of Al-Bab.
Turkey began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria in
August, targeting both IS and Kurdish militia.
After initial rapid progress, the campaign has been mired
since December in the deadly fight for Al-Bab.
66 Turks killed in campaign
Turkey’s Dogan news agency says 66 Turkish soldiers have
been killed in the campaign since it started, mostly in IS attacks. And on Thursday, three Turkish soldiers were
killed when a Russian air strike accidentally hit their position in a strike
targeting IS fighters in Al-Bab.
Moscow said the incident was an accident and is under
investigation.
Despite backing opposite sides in Syria’s conflict -- Moscow
is a government ally while Turkey supports the opposition -- the two countries
have worked closely in recent months. They
helped broker a nationwide ceasefire in place since December 30, and sponsored
a round of peace talks last month in the Kazakh capital, Astana.
Al-Bab has been under IS control since 2014, when the
group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq,
proclaiming its self-described caliphate.
In recent months, the jihadists have been rolled back in
large parts of northern Syria, both by the Turkish campaign but also a
Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF fights with air support from the US-led coalition
battling IS in Syria and Iraq, but Turkey regards the Kurdish component of the
SDF as “terrorists”.
The alliance is pushing towards IS’s de facto Syrian capital
Raqa in an operation dubbed “Wrath of the Euphrates”.
The advance has progressed slowly, in part, SDF officials
say, because IS has heavily mined territory around Raqa.
New talks in Astana?
The Observatory said Saturday that SDF fighters had now
advanced to around eight kilometres from the eastern outskirts of Raqa, though
their forces are further from the north of the city.
Turkey has suggested that it could turn its sights to Raqa
after the Al-Bab operation is complete, with Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan discussing both Al-Bab and Raqa in a call with US
President Donald Trump this week. Syria’s
conflict has killed more than 310,000 people since it began with
anti-government protests in March 2011.
Successive rounds of peace talks, including discussions
organised by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan last month, have failed to advance
a political solution to the conflict.
A new round of UN-sponsored talks is scheduled to take place
in Geneva on February 20, but invitations have yet to be sent out. On Saturday, Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry
said Syrian government officials and rebels were being invited to new talks
next week in the capital Astana.
“It is planned to hold the latest high-level meeting within
the Astana process on resolving the situation in Syria on February 15 and 16,”
the ministry said in a statement.
It added that UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura and US
observers would also be invited to the talks.
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