Syria Kurds battle Turkey-led offensive — monitor

BEIRUT — Kurdish-led fighters sought to fend off Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies near a key town in northern Syria on Saturday, a Britain-based war monitor said.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said pro-Ankara fighters had launched an attack on Ain Issa, where they have bases and offices.

"Turkish forces launched attacks with tanks, artillery and a large number of mercenaries... to invade Ain Issa," they said in a statement on Twitter in English.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said Turkish drones and artillery batteries were backing pro-Ankara fighters in clashes a kilometre from the town.

"The SDF are trying to prevent Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies from advancing towards the town," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Ankara and its Syrian proxies on October 9 launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria after the United States said it would be withdrawing troops from the region.

The invasion and a subsequent Russian-Turkish accord saw Turkey seize control a strip of land roughly 120 kilometres long and 30 kilometres deep on the Syrian side of the border.

Ain Issa lies on the southern edge of that strip of land, on the key M4 highway that runs east to west across the northern part of the war-torn country.

Ankara said it would suspend the military operation after the October 22 deal with Moscow, but forces have continued to inch forward ever since, the observatory says.

Kurdish fighters have been a key ally of the United States in fighting the Daesh terror group in Syria, but Turkey sees them as a “terrorist” organisation.

Meanwhile, a car bomb killed nine people including four civilians in a Turkish-held border town in northern Syria on Saturday, the observatory said.

Two children were among those killed in Tal Abyad, the group said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.

But Ankara’s defence ministry in a statement blamed Kurdish forces who controlled the town before Turkish troops and proxy fighters overran it last month.

An AFP photographer saw smoke billow from the twisted burnt remains of a pick-up truck inside the town, and a bright red blood stain on the road nearby.

Pro-Turkey fighters and men in civilian clothes carried away human remains in a waterproof cover, he said.

The area has been shaken by repeated such bombings since Turkish troops carried out a cross-border operation last month.