Syria’s al-Bab largely held by Ankara-backed militants: Turkey
The Turkish prime minister says the flashpoint Syrian town of al-Bab, once the stronghold of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, is now mostly controlled by Ankara-backed militants.
"Al-Bab has largely been taken under control finally," Binali Yildirim told lawmakers from his ruling Justice and Development Party at the parliament in Ankara on Tuesday, without adding further details.
In August 2016, Turkey began a major military intervention in Syria, dubbed "Euphrates Shield," sending tanks and warplanes across the border.
Ankara claimed that its military campaign was aimed at pushing Daesh from Turkey's border with Syria and stopping the advance of Kurdish forces, but Damascus denounced the operation as a breach of its sovereignty.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Turkish premier claimed that Ankara was seeking “to prevent the opening of corridors from territories controlled by terrorist organizations to Turkey,” adding, "From the start, our efforts have not been for nothing, we have reached our aim.”
However, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights made comments to the contrary, saying Daesh “still controls most of al-Bab."
"Battles continue on the outskirts and entry points ... of al-Bab” between Daesh and the Turkish-backed militants “amid advances by the latter in the area," said the UK-based monitoring group.
The Turkish military and allied militants managed to seize the city of Jarablus in the early weeks of the incursion into Syria.
Over the weekend, Ankara-backed militants entered the center of al-Bab.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that after al-Bab, the next targets would be Manbij, a Kurdish-dominated city held by the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), and Raqqah, the de facto capital of Daesh in Syria, if "we take a joint step with (US-led) coalition forces.”
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This is while the Syrian government forces are also pushing toward al-Bab from the south.
Turkey’s Hurriyet daily reported recently that militants and pro-Damascus forces had created a security corridor to avoid clashes in the battle for al-Bab.
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