[ad_1]
QAMISLI (Syria), Dec. 3 (AP) — U.S. troops resumed joint patrols Saturday with Kurdish-led forces in northeastern Syria, days after Turkey threatened to attack the war-torn country. country to be prevented from launching a new ground invasion.
A patrol of four U.S. armored vehicles and one for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces was seen leaving a U.S. base near the town of Rmeilan in northeastern Hasakah province.
Read also | The Taliban say Iran uses former Afghan soldiers as a military force.
The patrol was heading northeast toward another U.S. base near the Iraqi border.
The SDF’s top commander, Mazloum Abdi, told reporters on Tuesday that the group’s joint operations with the U.S.-led international coalition against the Islamic State group had been “temporarily halted” because of recent Turkish airstrikes.
Read also | INDONESIA EARTHQUAKE: Strong earthquake shakes main island of Java; no tsunami warning.
U.S. officials have said the patrols resumed Saturday were not aimed at fighting Islamic State militants, but were limited to the area around a sprawling camp that houses tens of thousands of women and children with ties to the Islamic State, as well as self-defense force detainees. A prison for thousands of extremists.
Turkey has launched a barrage of airstrikes against suspected militant targets in northern Syria and Iraq in recent days in retaliation for a deadly Nov. 13 bombing in Istanbul, which Ankara blamed on Kurdish groups.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also threatened a ground invasion, but did not specify when.
Kurdish groups have denied any link to the Istanbul bombing that killed six people and wounded dozens more.
No US troops or personnel were attacked in any way. But on Nov. 26, the U.S. military said two rockets were aimed at a U.S.-led coalition base in the northeastern Syrian town of Shaddadeh.
The base was not injured or damaged.
The SDF captured the last piece of land from the Islamic State in March 2019, marking a defeat on the battlefield for the extremist group that once controlled swaths of Syria and Iraq.
SDF officials have warned that Turkish attacks are undermining the fight against Islamic State, whose sleeper cells are still carrying out deadly attacks.
About 900 U.S. troops are stationed in Syria, both in the north and further south and east. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
[ad_2]
Source link