ELBEYLI, Turkey/BEIRUT – Turkey and its rebel allies opened a new line of attack in northern Syria, as Turkish tanks rolled across the border and Syrian fighters swept in from the west to take villages held by Islamic State.
The incursion was launched by Turkey from Kilis province — an area frequently targeted by Islamic State rockets — and coincided with a separate push by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, who seized several villages further to the east.
By supporting the rebels, mainly Arabs and Turkmen fighting under the loose banner of the Free Syrian Army, Turkey is hoping to drive out Islamic State militants and check the advance of US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters.
The rebels last week took the frontier town of Jarablus with Turkish support. The operation, called Euphrates Shield, is Ankara’s first full-scale Syrian incursion since the start of the five-year-old war.
On Saturday the tanks crossed the frontier and entered the Syrian rebel-controlled town of al-Rai to support the new offensive.
Al-Rai is about 55km west of Jarablus, and part of a 90km corridor near the Turkish border that Ankara says it is clearing of jihadists and protecting from Kurdish militia expansion.
The rebels then seized villages to the east and the south of al-Rai, according to a rebel official.
“They took several villages, about eight villages. At first they took two and withdrew from them, but then reinforcements came and there was an advance,” said Zakaria Malahifji of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim group.
The Turkish-backed operation was putting pressure on Islamic State from both east and west of a stretch of territory it controls along the border between the towns.
“The operations are to work from al-Rai towards the villages that were liberated to the west of Jarablus,” Colonel Ahmed Osman of the Sultan Murad rebel group told Reuters.
The Hamza Brigade, also part of the Free Syrian Army, took control of Arab Ezza, a village about 30km west of Jarablus.
