Turkish Army ‘close to taking Daesh-held town’

Turkish military vehicles drive in the Syrian rebel-held town of al-Rai as they head toward the northern Syrian town of al-Bab, Syria, on January 4, 2017. (Reuters file photo)

BEIRUT: Turkish troops backed by Syrian opposition fighters have entered the center of the Daesh bastion of Al-Bab and will soon capture it, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.
The town in Syria’s Aleppo province is the last stronghold of the militant group in the region, and has also been the target of an assault by Syrian government forces.
The Syrian opposition meanwhile announced the formation of a delegation to attend a new round of UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva on Feb. 20.
Daesh has come under pressure from simultaneous offensives in both Syria and Iraq, where the group seized large swathes of territory in 2014 and proclaimed a “caliphate.”
Erdogan, speaking in Istanbul, said Al-Bab “is now besieged from all fronts.”
“Our forces entered the center,” he added, saying it was “only a matter of time” before the alliance of Turkish forces and rebels took control of the town.
“Daesh forces have begun leaving Al-Bab completely,” he said.
Turkish forces and allied fighters entered Al-Bab for the first time on Saturday, from the west, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based monitor reported heavy clashes inside western Al-Bab on Sunday, as well as on the northern edge of the town, where Turkish forces and rebels were advancing but had not yet entered the town.
One Turkish soldier was killed and two soldiers wounded in clashes with Daesh militants, the Turkish Dogan news agency reported.
That raised to 67 the number of Turkish soldiers killed since Ankara began its Operation Euphrates Shield in August, targeting both Daesh and the Kurdish YPG militia.
Al-Bab has been a key target for both Operation Euphrates Shield, but also Syrian government forces, and Ankara now finds itself effectively jointly besieging the town with President Bashar Assad’s forces despite opposing his government.
Syria’s army has advanced toward Al-Bab from the south, and on Monday severed the last road leading into the town, completing its encirclement.
Erdogan added that Al-Bab was “not our final target,” hinting that Ankara may participate in the fight to recapture Daesh’s de facto Syrian capital Raqqa.
More than 310,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, and successive rounds of peace talks have failed to produce a political solution.
Invitations to new talks on February 20 in Geneva have been delayed while the opposition forms its delegation.