You are here

Syrian Kurds Plan To End Turkish-ISIS Alliance By Sealing Border

Syrian Kurds and local allies have drawn up plans to launch an attack to seal the final stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border currently held by ISIS militants.  The attack will deprive ISIS of a logistical route that it has used in bringing supplies and foreign recruits across the Turkish-Syrian border. Yahoo News reports: But it could lead to confrontation with Turkey, which is fighting against its own Kurdish insurgents and sees the Syrian Kurds as an enemy. After a year of military gains aided by U.S.-led air strikes, the Kurds and their allies already control the entire length of Syria’s northeastern Turkish frontier from Iraq to the banks of the Euphrates river, which crosses the border west of the town of Kobani. Other Syrian insurgent groups control the frontier further west, leaving only around 100 km (60 miles) of border in the hands of Islamic State fighters, running from the town of Jarablus on the bank of the Euphrates west to near the town of Azaz. But Turkey says it will not allow the Syrian Kurds to move west of the Euphrates. The source confirmed a report on Kurdish news website Xeber24 which cited a senior YPG leader saying the [...]