SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Turkey has deployed hundreds more troops in northern Syria in preparation for a long-suspended offensive against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, according to Bloomberg.
Early this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was preparing to step up operations in Syria. Ankara accused the People’s Protection Units (YPG) of attacking Turkish soldiers in northern Syria.
“Turkey is currently facing terrorist threats from across the border,” state-run Anadolu agency cited Erdogan as saying on Wednesday.
“We will continue our fight against terrorism with the same determination” at home and across the border, he added.
Citing two officials, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the planned offensive “is meant to seal more than two thirds of Turkey’s 910-kilometer frontier with Syria”.
The officials said Turkey would aim to capture areas south of the town of Kobane to connect areas under its control west and east of the Euphrates river, according to Bloomberg.
Turkey has been shelling positions belonging to the YPG, the main component of the SDF, across the border since two of its policemen were killed in Syria and mortars were fired into its territory earlier this month.
On Sunday, three members of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in a Turkish drone strike in Kobane.
It was the second attack on the town in just 10 days. On October 21, another Turkish drone targeted two vehicles in the town, killing two people and wounding four others.
They added that another potential target “is to capture the Menagh air base” near Azaz town from the YPG forces who carry out hit-and-run attacks on Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels who would join it in the planned campaigned.
Bloomberg said the area targeted for the currently planned offensive is largely empty of people.
The troop reinforcement took place after the Turkish parliament voted on Tuesday to allow the deployment of troops in Syria and Iraq for two more years.
Turkish forces have launched three incursions in the last five years, seizing hundreds of kilometers of border strip and pushing around 30 km (20 miles) into northern Syria.
