Syria Kurds test Turkey’s planned “safe zone”

BEIRUT – The Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have launched an offensive against ISIS outside Jarablus, challenging Turkey's plans to establish a “safe zone,” roll back ISIS and prevent Kurdish forces from expanding along its border.

 

“The YPG successfully carried out its first operation to breach ISIS defensive lines west of the Euphrates River on Thursday night, managing to kill 12 of members of the group to the East of Jarablus,” Bas News reported Friday morning.

 

The Iraqi Kurdish outlet cited a military field source as saying that a group of YPG fighters had crossed secretly on boats to the west bank of the Euphrates River and reached ISIS positions east of Jarablus, where fierce clashes erupted.

 

The source said that as a result of the clashes the Kurdish fighters were able to kill 12 ISIS fighters, injure several more and return safely to their bases on the eastern bank of the river.

 

The source added that ISIS militants had arbitrarily shelled Kurdish villages west of Kobane with mortars and artillery following the operation without any known casualties at the time Bas News’s report was published.

 

Days before the raid, the general commander of the YPG boasted that Kurdish forces would “liberate Jarabulus,” directly challenging Ankara’s plans to establish its own Turkey-friendly safe zone in the area.  

 

Turkey in late July launched military campaigns against both ISIS and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) –an affiliate of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which controls the YPG forces that have raised concerns in Ankara following months of sweeping victories against ISIS near Turkey’s border.

 

Prior to the launch of the military operations, Turkish leaders repeatedly insisted that the expansion of YPG forces in northern Syria posed a threat to the country.

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on June 26 warned that his country “will never allow” the establishment of a Kurdish state along its border, setting the stage for the reports that Turkey’s ground incursion would aim to preempt any further Kurdish advances against ISIS along the border.

So far, the Turks have focused their military efforts against the PKK, while reportedly training Turkmen and friendly Syrian rebel forces to act as a proxy to battle ISIS in a zone of territory stretching from north of Aleppo to Jarablus in the west.