Turkish-backed rebels clear IS from Turkey's Syrian border
Turkish-backed rebels on September 4 cleared Islamic State from Turkey's Syrian border, securing a 90 km (55 miles) corridor and marking a substantial gain in Ankara's plan to drive out Sunni militants and stop the advance of Syrian Kurdish fighters.
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The rebels, mainly Syrian Arabs and Turkmen fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, took charge of the frontier between Azaz and Jarablus after seizing 20 villages from the Sunni hardline group, the Turkish military said in a statement.
That puts Turkey in firm control of a stretch of land it sees as a bulwark against the US-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. However, that could sharpen tensions with the United States over Syria policy.
Turkey is fighting a three-decade-old Kurdish insurgency in its southeast and fears that gains by the Syrian Kurdish YPG will embolden militants at home. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
"We are there to protect our border, to provide for our citizens safety of life and property, and to ensure Syria's integrity," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in a speech on September 4, discussing the incursion, which Ankara calls Euphrates Shield.
"We will never allow the formation of an artificial state in the north of Syria," he told a crowd in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
