A battle is imminent at Turkish border, as the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia strikes deep inside the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s capital province of Al-Raqqa, Syria, and advances Saturday towards the Turkish border city of Tel Abyad.
With the assistance of U.S.-led air strikes, the YPG and smaller Syrian Arab rebels are fighting their way towards Tel Abyad, after laying siege to the town of Suluk, Redur Xelil, the YPG spokesman, told Reuters.
Tel Abyad is strategically important to the Islamic State because it connects the de-facto capital, the northern Syrian city of Al-Raqqa, with Turkey, allowing Western recruits to reach the fighting and militants to conduct their black-market oil and goods business.
Over 13,000 refugees have crossed the Turkish-Syrian border in an effort to flee the barbaric fighting and the U.S.-led airstrikes, and 1,500 more are still waiting to cross. The AP reports that Turkish soldiers sprayed water and fired bullets into the air when refugees approached the border fence on Saturday, a security source said.
“Many of the Daesh [Arabic derogatory term for the Islamic State] militants have fled [Suluk], apart from a group of suicide attackers inside the town and the booby traps, so we are very cautious about entering the town center,” Xelil told AP.
Syria’s strongest Kurdish militia, the YPG, are mostly moderates driven by the hope of a starting an independent nation, free of Turkey and Syria. Capturing Tel Abyad would link up Kurdish-controlled Hasaka province and the city of Kobani.
The YPG is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK], and considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, for fighting a decade-long insurgency.
Turkey does not support the Kurds’ independence, and Thursday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the West of supporting Kurdish “terrorist” groups while bombing Turkmens and Arabs in Syria, AP reported.
