Turkey says Syrian-Turkish border completely secured from IS group

Turkey and its allies opened a new line of attack in northern Syria on Saturday, as Turkish tanks rolled across the border and Syrian fighters swept in from the west to take villages held by Islamic State and check the advance of the US-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG.

Islamic State has lost its last link between its main territories and the outside world as Syrian rebels backed by Turkish tanks and airstrikes captured the last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border held by the extremist group.

Turkey’s operation in Syria began on 24 August and it has sent tanks and war planes to back up opposition fighters.

Turkey has launched two incursions into Syria since August 24 in an operation created to drive the Islamic State away from the border and prevent the advance of USA -backed Kurdish forces, which are also battling the extremist group.

Turkey, which considers the YPG a terrorist organisation and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fears that gains by the Syrian Kurdish YPG will strengthen militants at home.

Al-Rai is about 55 kilometers west of Jarablus, another border town and key ISIS supply point that Syrian rebels and Turkish forces recently recaptured from the terror group.

Subsequent to the Turkish advance in Jarablus, clashes erupted between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the pro-Turkey factions.

Yildirim said that Turkey’s goal in northern Syria was to “cleanse Daesh (IS), PKK, YPG, PYD elements” and to secure its border.

In Hangzhou, China, meanwhile, President Barack Obama said the USA and Russian Federation have not given up on negotiations to halt the bloodshed in Syria, but acknowledged that “gaps of trust” exist between the rival powers. The gap is the last remaining stretch of the Syrian border under IS control.

Meanwhile, it is to note Turkey describes Kurdish groups too as terrorists.

Monitors said the presence of so-called Islamic State (IS) on the border had been ended.

At least 38 people were killed in a string of bombings inside government territory in Syria, state media reported Monday.

His statement came as the US embassy in Turkey announced that the USA military has attacked ISIS targets in Syria using mobile rocket launchers it has based on Turkish territory for the first time.

Turkey says it is determined to rid the area of Islamist militants and prevent it from being occupied by US-backed Kurdish fighters, who are viewed as an equal threat. Aleppo has been a major battlefield in Syria since 2011, with fierce fighting between rebel groups and regime forces.

The plan would need Russia to convince President Bashar al-Assad to agree on grounding his air force, a move that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said was not the goal.

The conquest came as US President Barack Obama pledged support for Turkey’s stepped-up role in the fight against the militants after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Group of 20 summit in China. The militant group said it sent three suicide bombers to the area, the first of them in a vehicle. It added that all roads linking rebel-held eastern Aleppo with opposition areas outside the city “have been cut”.