Fighting and attacks continue to rage across northern Syria, as Turkey and their allies in the self-described Syrian National Army (SNA) attack Kurdish forces from the US-backed SDF. Strikes and clashes are reported in multiple areas.
SNA forces attacked areas south of Manbij and near the Tishreen Dam. Turkish artillery forces attacked areas around the city of Kobani, and further to the east, there were four Turkish drone strikes against Kurdish forces in the Raqqa Province.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke at a news conference in Ankara on Monday, saying the situation is changing inside Syria and it is “only a matter of time” before Kurdish militant groups there are totally wiped out.
Fidan warned western nations against continuing to support the Kurds, insisting that they were using ISIS “as an excuse to embolden the PKK,” a banned Kurdish faction in Turkey.
Turkey has been demanding the US stop backing the SDF recently, and indeed have been for years. Turkey’s official narrative claims the PKK and the YPG are effectively the same organization. The YPG is the largest faction inside the SDF.
There have been reports since late last week that the US is in the process of establishing a military base in Kobani to support the Kurds. Over the weekend the Pentagon said there were “no plans” to set up such a base and a spokesperson claimed not to know where the reports came from. Despite this denial, reports of convoys full of US military construction equipment heading into Kobani continue to emerge. Clearly images and sightings of the convoy are where the reports are coming from.
While Turkey keeps demanding everyone else back away from support for the SDF, Turkish officials are virtually uniformly upbeat about the military prospect of defeating them, and soon. There were reports of Turkey claiming effective victory in Manbij in the past week, and the increased focus further east on Kobani and even the Raqqa Province underscores their intention to expand deeper into the SDF’s territory.
