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Turkey, Sending More Tanks Into Syria, Steps Up Pressure on Kurds With Invasion of Syria, Erdogan Shows His New Power Over Turkey’s Military
(about 11 hours later)
ISTANBUL — The Turkish military sent at least nine more tanks into northern Syria on Thursday to support rebel fighters there, and it seemed to be succeeding in its broader aims of clearing the border area of Islamic State militants and preventing Kurdish militias from seizing more territory in the region. KARKAMIS, Turkey — In recent years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered plans drawn up for a Turkish military incursion into Syria. At every turn, though, military commanders, already fighting a war inside Turkey against Kurdish militants, pushed back.
On Wednesday, the rebel forces, backed by Turkish tanks and special forces troops, as well as by American air support, routed Islamic State militants from the strategic border town of Jarabulus, in what was the country’s first major ground incursion into Syria and its most significant offensive yet in the conflict. And then last month a rebel faction of the military tried to stage a coup, and that changed everything.
Turkish officials made little secret that the main purpose of the operation was to ensure that Kurdish militias did not consolidate control over an area west of the Euphrates River that they seized recently during a United States-backed campaign against the Islamic State in the city of Manbij. In the aftermath of the coup, which failed but claimed more than 200 lives, Mr. Erdogan purged thousands of officers from the ranks, leaving the military seemingly depleted. It also provoked worry from Western allies, including the United States, that Turkey would either be unwilling or unable to be a reliable partner in the fight against the Islamic State.
That message was strongly seconded by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday during a visit to the Turkish capital, Ankara. He said the Kurds had to return to the east of the Euphrates or risk losing American support. He added that there should be no separate Kurdish entity carved out of northern Syria, and that the country should remain united. Instead, the opposite happened on Wednesday, as Mr. Erdogan ordered Turkish tanks and special forces soldiers into Syria, under cover of American and Turkish warplanes, to assist Syrian rebels in seizing the city of Jarabulus, one of the last border strongholds of the Islamic State.
Militias affiliated with the Democratic Union Party, the main Syrian Kurdish party known as P.Y.D., have been crucial allies of the United States in its fight against the Islamic State in Syria. But Turkey considers the group’s expansion on its border a threat to its national security because of its links to Kurdish insurgents in Turkey. More Turkish tanks rumbled into northern Syria on Thursday to support rebels there, and the Turkish military seemed to be succeeding in clearing the border area of Islamic State militants, and preventing Kurdish militias from seizing more territory in the region — a primary goal of Turkey in the campaign.
“Our strategic priority is preventing the P.Y.D. from joining the east and west cantons,” the Turkish defense minister, Fikri Isik, said in a television interview on Thursday. He was referring to the party’s aspiration of joining two Kurdish-controlled areas, a large stretch of territory east of the Euphrates and the smaller one it recently seized west of the river, by taking Islamic State territory in between. The operation, coming so soon after the failed coup, has highlighted how Mr. Erdogan, even after the purge, secured more operational control of the military. It allowed him to undertake Turkey’s most ambitious role yet in the long Syrian civil war and to bolster the flagging fortunes of rebel groups, of which Turkey has been one of the most consistent supporters.
Syrian Kurdish forces said in a statement on Thursday that their fighters had returned to their bases after capturing the city of Manbij from the Islamic State, without specifying locations. A press officer for the United States-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants said the Kurds had retreated to the east of the Euphrates to prepare for the eventual liberation of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State in Syria. Other factors holding back Turkey’s ambitions in Syria were also recently resolved. A feud with Russia, which began last year after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the border, ended after Mr. Erdogan expressed regret for the episode. After Ankara’s relations with Moscow deteriorated, a Turkish incursion into Syria could have risked war with Russia, which has been bombing rebels in support of the Syrian government. And the United States, which had previously been opposed to Turkey’s intervention, agreed to support it.
But some commentators questioned how meaningful any withdrawal would be given that the town was handed over to something called the Manbij Military Council, an ally of the Syrian Kurds. The operation also buoyed the hopes of armed opposition groups that are not affiliated with the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, whose fighters and supporters have been dejected for months over losses in northern Syria that their foreign backers did little to prevent, and a fear that the United States and Turkey were preparing to abandon them to pursue of a broader deal with the Russians.
They “can stay any place they want under various names,” a Kurdish reporter in northern Syria, Himbervan Kousa, said in a Facebook post. “They can stay in Manbij under the name of the ‘Manbij Military Council’ if they want.” A senior Turkish official, who spoke anonymously as a matter of protocol, said that many commanders had resisted an operation in Syria in recent years.
The Turkish military continued operations inside Syria on Thursday. Turkish news channels showed footage of several tanks moving toward the Syrian border and reported that at least nine tanks had entered the country’s north. Turkish officials said that brought the number of tanks inside Syria to more than 20. Many analysts who closely follow the Turkish military have said the same thing. One of the most prominent commanders opposed to a Syria operation, the official said, was the former head of the Turkish special forces, Brig. Gen. Semih Terzi, who was one of the most prominent plotters and was killed during the coup attempt.
About 350 soldiers from the Turkish armed forces are taking part in the operation, called Euphrates Shield, including 150 members of the special forces, local news media reported. The invasion seemed to support the opinion of many experts that the Turkish military’s combat capabilities had not been substantially diminished. “This is the second largest military in NATO,” said Ross Wilson, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington and ambassador to Turkey from 2005 to 2008. “Yes, it’s been somewhat reduced in the last month, but it is still a very potent and well-trained fighting force. They are very capable in their own region.”
On Thursday, an estimated 350 Turkish soldiers were in Syria taking part in the operation, called Euphrates Shield, including 150 members of the special forces, the local media reported. Two Syrian rebels interviewed in Karkamis, which lies just across the border from Jarabulus, said that Turkish soldiers were mainly helping to defuse and dismantle the numerous bombs and booby-traps that the Islamic State, which fled the city without much of a fight, had left behind. Witnesses reported loud explosions, followed by plumes of smoke, coming from Jarabulus on Thursday afternoon.
The question now, with the Turkish troops inside Syria, is how long they will remain there. Turkish officials have not given a timetable, but have indicated that the army would stay as long as it takes to neutralize security threats to Turkey — defined as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and Syrian Kurdish militias.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who arrived in Ankara, the capital, on Wednesday just as the operation began, seemed to suggest on Thursday that the Turkish military would stay in northern Syria indefinitely, and with the blessing of the United States.
“I think the Turks are prepared to stay in an effort to take out ISIL as long as takes,” Mr. Biden said during a visit to Sweden, according to Reuters. He added that the Turks have gradually come to “the realization that ISIL is an existential threat to Turkey.”
Some analysts said that Turkish forces, wary of being perceived as occupiers, would likely clear a swath of territory west of the Euphrates River, perhaps several miles inside Syria, and then eventually turn day-to-day operations in that area over to Syrian rebels backed by Turkish special operations troops and trusted local Turkmen militia forces.
“While Turkey could hold whatever area they clear, I don’t think that’s the plan; rather the point is to deny the area to the Kurds, and allow the other rebel groups more to Turkey’s liking to hold it,” said Patrick M. Skinner, director of special projects for the Soufan Group, a political risk assessment firm in New York.
Hassan Ahmed, a Syrian rebel who works with fighting groups, but mainly concerns himself with the political side of the Syrian opposition, predicted that Turkey would remain in Jarabulus for about two weeks. Metin Gurcan, a Turkish analyst and expert on the military, said that, depending on whether Syrian Kurdish militias try to challenge the Turks, the Turkish Army would most likely end its operation within two or three weeks.
Still, thwarting the Islamic State was not the only objective of the Turks, nor even its primary one. Turkish officials have made little secret that the main purpose of the operation was to ensure that Kurdish militias did not consolidate control over an area west of the Euphrates that they had seized during a United States-backed campaign against the Islamic State in the city of Manbij, south of Jarabulus.
That message was strongly seconded by Mr. Biden on Wednesday. He said the Kurds had to return to east of the Euphrates or risk losing American support.
Militias affiliated with the Democratic Union Party, the main Syrian Kurdish party, have been crucial allies of the United States in the fight against ISIS in Syria. But Turkey considers the group’s expansion along its border a threat to its national security because of its links to Kurdish insurgents in Turkey.
Syrian Kurdish forces said in a statement on Thursday that their fighters had returned to their bases after capturing Manbij from the Islamic State, without specifying locations. A press officer for the United States-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants said the Kurds had retreated east of the Euphrates to prepare for the eventual liberation of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State in Syria.
But in the evening, the Turkish military shelled a group of Syrian Kurdish fighters near Manbij after they had made an advance west of the Euphrates, in a breach of the Kurds’ agreement with the United States.
Suleiman Kankilic, a Turkish paramedic and ambulance driver, said that before the Islamic State took control of Jarabulus, merchants enjoyed a robust business selling things like wheat, milk, cooking gas and soft drinks to the city, which was then under the control of the moderate Free Syrian Army.
“We really want this war to end,” he said in a small clinic about a half-hour from the border on Wednesday. “Turkey getting involved is good for us because we feel safer with our soldiers on the other side.”