US-Backed Syria Force Denies Islamic State in Area Targeted by Turkey

JANUARY 24, 2018 9:32 AM

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) rejected a Turkish army statement that Islamic State was present in the Afrin region of northwestern Syria, where Ankara launched an offensive four days ago which has raised international concern.

The Turkish military said late on Tuesday it had killed at least 260 Syrian Kurdish fighters and Islamic State militants in its offensive into the Kurdish-dominated Afrin region of northwest Syria.

Turkey’s air and ground operation has opened a new front in Syria’s multi-sided civil war and could threaten US plans to stabilize and rebuild a large area of northeast Syria — beyond President Bashar al-Assad’s control — where Washington helped the SDF to drive out Islamic State militants.

“The whole world knows Daesh (Islamic State) is not present in Afrin,” Redur Xelil, a senior SDF official, told Reuters. He said the Turkish military had greatly exaggerated SDF casualties, though he declined to say how many had been killed.

Turkey sees the YPG — the most powerful faction within the SDF — as an extension of a Kurdish group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Turkey. It has long said it will not allow the Kurdish fighters to control a strip of Syrian territory on its southern border.

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