Turkish forces clash with anti-Daesh Kurdish forces in Syria

Clashes broke out for the fourth day between Turkey backed rebel force and the SDF forces west of Manbij which the rebels have vowed to recapture.

A group affiliated to the SDF said on Thursday it would hand over villages on a front line where it has been fighting Turkish-backed rebels to Syrian government control, under an agreement with Russia.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said last Tuesday Manbij was the next target of the campaign following the capture of al-Bab from Daesh.

The Kurdish YPG militia, which is the backbone of the SDF, is viewed by Turkey as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey.

The YPG helped capture Manbij from Daesh last year in a US-backed campaign fought under the SDF banner. The YPG has subsequently said it has withdrawn from Manbij. But Turkey continues to assert that the group remains in the city.

A US-allied militia in northern Syria said on Thursday it would hand over villages on a front line where it has been fighting Turkish-backed rebels to Syrian government control, under an agreement with Russia.

No SDF official was immediately available to confirm if any villages had been handed over to the Syrian government.

Turkey’s entry into Syria’s civil war via the Euphrates Shield campaign in support of rebel groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army was intended both to push Daesh from the border and to stop Kurdish expansion there.

Read: Syrian army takes more villages from militants in northwest Syria