Turkey launched a broad assault on Kurdish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria on Wednesday, with intensive bombardment followed by a ground offensive made possible by the withdrawal of US troops.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the start of the attack on Twitter and soon after jets and artillery targeted Kurdish positions along the full width of the border, sending thousands of civilians fleeing their homes.
That was followed late in the evening by the beginning of a ground operation, the Turkish defence ministry said.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 16 members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia were killed in the early hours of the Turkish offensive.
Both the SOHR and SDF reported heavy clashes near the city of Tel Abad.
urkey’s defence ministry said on twitter that its forces had struck 181 Kurdish “terror group” targets so far.
The spokesman for one of the pro-Turkish Syrian militant groups told AFP the land phase of the operation began in Tal Abad, and Turkish media reported special forces and armoured vehicles had entered at several points along the border.
The assault had seemed inevitable since US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a military pullback from the border, but the attack triggered international condemnation and an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council set for Thursday.
The Arab League announced late Wednesday it was convening an emergency meeting in Cairo on October 12 to discuss the situation.
