Warning of a “humanitarian catastrophe,” Syrian
Kurdish forces who are allied with the United States issued a “general
mobilization” call on Wednesday in northeastern Syria, along the border with
Turkey, as Ankara threatened an imminent invasion of the area.
The Turkish operation would ignite new fighting in
the war-ravaged country’s eight-year-old war, potentially displacing hundreds
of thousands of people.
Turkey has long threatened an attack on the Kurdish
fighters in Syria whom Ankara considers terrorists allied with a Kurdish
insurgency within Turkey. A Syrian war monitoring group, the Britain-based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported Wednesday that people were
fleeing the border town of Tal Abyad.
AP journalists on the Turkish side of the border
overlooking Tal Abyad saw Turkish forces crossing into Syria in military
vehicles Wednesday, though there was no official statement from either side
that the offensive had begun.
Expectations of a Turkish invasion rose after
President Donald Trump on Sunday abruptly announced that American troops would
step aside ahead of the Turkish push — a shift in U.S. policy that essentially
abandoned the Syrian Kurds, longtime U.S. allies in the fight against the
Islamic State group in Syria.
But Trump also threatened to “totally destroy and
obliterate” Turkey’s economy if the Turkish push into Syria went too far.
Turkey has been massing troops for days along its
border with Syria and vowed it would go ahead with the military operation and
not bow to the U.S. threat over its plans against the Kurds.
A senior Turkish official said Wednesday that
Turkey’s troops would “shortly” cross into Syria, together with allied Syrian
rebel forces to battle the Kurdish fighters and also the Islamic State group.
Trump later cast his decision to pull back U.S.
troops from parts of northeast Syria as fulfilling a campaign promise to
withdraw from the “endless war” in the Middle East. Republican critics and
others said he was sacrificing a U.S. ally, the Syrian Kurdish forces, and
undermining American credibility.
Fahrettin Altun, the Turkish presidency’s
communications director, called on the international community in a Washington
Post op-ed published Wednesday “to rally” behind Ankara, which he said would
also take over the fight against the Islamic State group.
Turkey aimed to “neutralize” Syrian Kurdish
militants in northeast Syria and to “liberate the local population from the
yoke of the armed thugs,” Altun wrote.
Turkey’s defense Hulusi Akar told state-run Anadolu
Agency that Turkish preparations for the offensive were continuing.
In its call for mobilization, the local civilian
Kurdish authority known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East
Syria, also urged the international community to live up to its
responsibilities as “a humanitarian catastrophe might befall our people” in the
region.
“We call upon our people, of all ethnic groups, to
move toward areas close to the border with Turkey to carry out acts of
resistance during this sensitive historical time,” it said. The statement said
the mobilization would last for three days.
The Kurds also said that they want the U.S.-led
coalition to set up a no-fly zone in northeast Syria to protect the civilian
population from Turkish airstrikes.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
accused Washington of playing “very dangerous games” with the Syrian Kurds saying
that the U.S. first propped up the Syrian Kurdish “quasi state” in northeastern
Syria and is now withdrawing its support.
“Such reckless attitude to this highly sensitive
subject can set fire to the entire region, and we have to avoid it at any cost,”
he said during a visit to Kazakhstan. Russian news said Moscow has communicated
that position Washington.
Earlier on Wednesday, IS militants targeted a post
of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northern Syrian city of
Raqqa, which was once the de facto IS capital at the height of the militants’
power in the region.
The Kurdish-led SDF, which is holding thousands of
IS fighters in several detention facilities in northeastern Syria, has warned
that a Turkish incursion might lead to the resurgence of the extremists. The
U.S. allied Kurdish-led force captured the last IS area controlled by the
militants in eastern Syria in March.
In Wednesday’s attack, IS launched three suicide
bombings against Kurdish positions in Raqqa. There was no immediate word on
casualties. Raqqa is being Silently Slaughtered, an activist collective that
covers news in the northern city, reported an exchange of fire and a blast.
The Observatory said the Raqqa attack involved two
IS fighters who engaged in a shootout before blowing themselves up.
Also Wednesday, Iranian state television reported a
surprise military drill with special operations forces near the country’s
border with Turkey, in Iran’s Western Azerbaijan province. The TV didn’t
mention the expected Turkish offensive into Syria or elaborate on the reasons
for the drill.
The head of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said
he is alarmed at Turkey’s planned military offensive, adding in a statement
that such an invasion would be a “blatant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and
threatens Syria’s integrity.”
Aboul Gheit said the planned incursion also
threatens to inflame further conflicts in eastern and northern Syria, and
“could allow for the revival” of the Islamic State group.