Erdogan Says Military Plans to Hit Syria’s Manbij and Raqqa

The fall of the town of al-Bab to Turkey-backed rebels would threaten the government’s siege on the rebels in the city of Aleppo, to the west.

A planned operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State should be carried out by local forces and the Kurdish YPG militia should not be included, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday.

The Kurdish-led forces are now in control of the village, about 10 miles from the highly prized IS-controlled al-Bab town. Ankara, however, views the YPG as an extension of its own Kurdish insurgency, which has been fighting for autonomy for three decades.

The bombardment took place in the Turkey-Syria border region.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Monday the coalition has also made overlapping the fight for Mosul and Raqqa part of the plan to defeat Islamic State forces.

US President Barack Obama, in a telephone call with Erdogan on Wednesday, recognised Turkey’s contributions to the fight against Daesh, the White House said.

The top USA military commander said on Wednesday that Kurdish YPG fighters would be included as a part of the force to isolate the Islamic State-held Syrian city of Raqqa. We are determined to cleanse Manbij from the PYD as soon as possible.

In a video briefing from Baghdad to the Pentagon, Townsend said it was urgent for the U.S.to rally often feuding local forces in northeastern Syria, including the YPG, for an offensive on Raqqa to disrupt ISIS plots for terror attacks against the USA and Europe turned up by US intelligence. Dabiq is a former Islamic State stronghold that the rebels seized from the jihadists this month.It was the first time a direct clash between Syrian forces and the Turkey-backed rebels has been announced.

However, Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member, has voiced its refusal to work with the YPG.

Işık said that Turkey has the necessary skills to provide an alternative to YPG and that the U.S. should not allow them to reach Raqqa.

The general said that re-claiming Mosul from ISIS would “take away a significant area for them”, but he added that, “we should expect that they will adapt as they always have”. The Kurds shelled the rebel-held town of Mare’ for several hours on Sunday while Kurdish engineers stiffened the SDF’s ditches and defensive line along the Azaz-Mare’ axis, reports Al Masdar.