Turkey Forced Into More Military Intervention In Northern Syria
The country launches airstrikes for a second day - but its motives are more complex than they might seem, writes Dominic Waghorn.
Tuesday 23 August 2016 18:26, UK
Turkey is taking its involvement in the Syrian civil war to a new level.
For a second day it has been shelling positions in northern Syria and it is also backing a fighting force of hundreds of Syrian rebels preparing to cross into the same region to take on Islamic State.
But it is also bombarding the people who have been the most successful in fighting IS to date - the Kurds.
On the face of it, it seems a self-defeating strategy, but Turkey has its reasons.
The country sees IS as a threat, not least because it is directly mortaring the southern Turkish border town of Karkarmis, but also because of a series of devastating suicide bomb attacks it blames on the group in recent months.
:: Turkey Strikes Islamic State And Kurds In Syria
But it is worried by IS collapsing in the north of Syria too, because of what might happen next.
The Kurds may have been the most effective fighting force against IS but Turkey sees them as an extension of Kurdish separatists fighting to create an autonomous region within Turkish borders.
Kurdish-dominated groups already control territory along most of Turkey's border with Syria. If IS collapses in the north, they could move in to take control of the rest.
So Turkey is forced into a more interventionist position. It is shelling both IS in the border town of Jerablus, but also Kurdish positions further south in the town of Manbij, which IS fled last week.
It is also allowing a force of hundreds of Arab and Turkmen militiamen to gather on its southern border to prepare to move in on IS in Jerablus, hoping they will act as a counterweight against the Kurds.
The move complicates an already fearsomely complex situation and risks drawing in yet another military into a hugely complicated war.
For civilians in northern Syria it means more ordnance being dropped on them and increases the chances of even more civilian casualties.