Iraq News Now

Turkey fired its first shots against the Kurds overnight by bombing a key supply route on the Syrian-Iraqi border, officials have confirmed.

The Turkish air force struck the Semalka Border Crossing in order to stop Kurdish forces resupplying along a route which links their territories in northern Iraq and Syria, two security officials said.

'One of the fundamental goals was to cut off the transit route between Iraq and Syria before the operation in Syria, a source told Reuters. 'In this way, the group's support lines, including ammunition, are shut off.'

Video shot in the area overnight shows two large flashes against the horizon while the distant sound of fighter jets can be heard. It is thought this shows the crossing being destroyed.

It comes a day after Donald Trump agreed to withdraw US troops from Syria and hand control of regional security over to Turkey, which has vowed to create a 'peace corridor' along its border by wiping out 'terrorists'.

Trump also confirmed on Tuesday morning that he'd  extended an invitation to the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to meet with him at the White House in November. 

In a tweet, Trump said Turkey was a 'good trading partner of the US' and had been 'very good to deal with'. 

Turkey views the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces - America's key ally in the battle against ISIS - as a terror group and has previously outlined plans to strike a series of their strongholds along the border.

Trump has been accused of a 'spineless' capitulation to Turkey over his pledge to withdraw troops - and on Tuesday denied that he had abandoned the Kurds to their fate.

He tweeted: 'We may be in the process of leaving Syria, but in no way have we Abandoned the Kurds, who are special people and wonderful fighters. Likewise our relationship with Turkey, a NATO and Trading partner, has been very good.'

Trump defended his decision to withdraw troops from the region, despite it being met with fury and disgust by GOP lawmakers. 

Shortly after announcing he'd extended an invitation to Ergodan, Trump tweeted that: 'Turkey already has a large Kurdish population and fully understands that while we only had 50 soldiers remaining in that section of Syria, and they have been removed, any unforced or unnecessary fighting by Turkey will be devastating to their economy and to their very fragile currency. We are helping the Kurds financially/weapons!' 

This comes after Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell on Monday called the move 'a retreat' that 'would increase the risk that ISIS and other terrorist groups regroup'. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's closest friends in Congress, also blasted him in a tweet, calling the move 'a stain on America's honor' and 'a disaster in the making.' Graham said: 'The biggest lie being told by the administration [is] that ISIS is defeated.'   

Turkey has been involved in a decades-long conflict with Kurdish separatists as they demand their own state, which would fall largely on Turkish territory. 

Erdogan has been repeatedly accused of carrying out atrocities against Turkish Kurds. 

As the Syrian conflict threatened to enter a deadly new phase...

• Iran, Turkey's regional ally, warned Ankara not to push ahead with its invasion and to 'respect' the territorial integrity of Syria
• Turkey's vice-president said his country 'won't bow to threats' after Trump warned he will crash their economy if they do anything he deems 'off limits'
• The Syrian government urged the Kurds to join with Assad's forces 'rather than plunge into the abyss' after being abandoned by the US 
• President Trump confirmed he will meet President Erdogan during a visit to the White House next month 

Trump was accused of a 'spineless' capitulation to Turkey, Iran and Russia after suddenly agreeing to withdraw US troops during a call with Erdogan on Sunday which left the Defense Department 'blindsided'.

A National Security Council official, who is said to have direct knowledge of the conversation, said Trump was 'out-negotiated' and 'got rolled' by Erdogan during a routine call.

In an apparent attempt to shore up his tough-guy credentials, Trump tweeted Monday that if Turkey 'does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the economy of Turkey'. 

However, Turkey said will not bow to threats over its Syria plans, the Turkish vice president said Tuesday in an apparent response to President Donald Trump's warning to Ankara the previous day about the scope of its planned military incursion into northeastern Syria.

Trump said earlier this week the United States would step aside for an expected Turkish attack on Syrian Kurdish fighters, who have fought alongside Americans for years, but he then threatened to destroy the Turks' economy if they went too far.

He later cast his decision to abandon the Kurdish fighters in Syria as fulfilling a campaign promise to withdraw from 'endless war' in the Middle East, even as Republican critics and others said he was sacrificing a U.S. ally and undermining American credibility.

Trump's statements have reverberated on all sides of the divide in Syria and the Mideast. 

In Ankara, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said Turkey was intent on combatting Syrian Kurdish fighters across its border in Syria and on creating a zone that would allow Turkey to resettle Syrian refugees there.

'Where Turkey's security is concerned, we determine our own path but we set our own limits,' Oktay said.

Meanwhile, in the Syrian capital of Damascus, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad called on the country's Kurds to rejoin the government side after apparently being abandoned by their U.S. allies.

Mekdad's comments were the first Syrian reaction since Trump's announcement on Sunday and as northeastern Syria braces for an imminent Turkish attack on Syrian Kurdish militias. Trump's statement has infuriated the Kurds, who stand to lose the autonomy they gained from Damascus during Syria's civil war, now in its ninth year.

'The homeland welcomes all its sons and Damascus will solve all Syrian problems in a positive way, away from violence,' Mekdad claimed in an interview with the pro-government daily Al-Watan.

President Bashar Assad's government abandoned the predominantly Kurdish area in northern Syria at the height of Syria's civil war to focus on more key areas where the military was being challenged by the rebels. 

The U.S. began working with the Syrian Kurdish fighters after the emergence of the Islamic State group.

The Syrian government 'will defend all Syrian territory and will not accept any occupation of any land or iota of the Syrian soil,' Mekdad said about the expected Turkish incursion.

The Syrian Kurdish force has pledged to fight back, raising the potential for an eruption of new warfare in Syria.

'We will not hesitate for a moment in defending our people' against Turkish troops, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said in a statement, adding that it has lost 11,000 fighters in the war against the Islamic State group in Syria.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the U.S.-backed predominantly Kurdish force that fought IS invited Trump to come see the progress the force and the U.S. made in northeastern Syria.

'We have more work to do to keep ISIS from coming back & make our accomplishments permanent. If America leaves, all will be erased,' he tweeted, referring to the Islamic State group by an alternative acronym.

Turkey, which considers Kurdish fighters in Syria terrorists and links them to a decades-old insurgency in Turkey, has already launched two major incursions into northern Syria over the past years.  

The first was in 2016, when Turkey and Syrian opposition fighters it backs attacked areas held by the Islamic State group west of the Euphrates River. 

Last year Turkey launched an attack on the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin, leading to the displacement of some 300,000 people.

Also Tuesday, Iran urged Turkey not to go ahead with its planned an attack on Syrian Kurds, the Iranian state TV reported. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, to express Tehran's opposition to the anticipated Turkish operation.

Zarif urged Turkey to respect Syria's integrity and sovereignty, the report said.

Iran, Turkey and Russia have been working together as part of the so-called Astana group on the Syrian civil war, talks that have run parallel to U.N. efforts to find a solution to the conflict.

Trump's announcement threw the military situation in Syria into fresh chaos and injected deeper uncertainty into the region.

U.S. involvement in Syria has been fraught with peril since it started in 2014 with the insertion of small numbers of special operations forces to recruit, train, arm and advise local fighters to combat the Islamic State. 

Trump entered the White House in 2017 intent on getting out of Syria, and even before the counter-IS military campaign reclaimed the last militant strongholds early this year, he declared victory and said troops would leave.

In recent weeks, the U.S. and Turkey had reached an apparent accommodation of Turkish concerns about the presence of Kurdish fighters, seen in Turkey as a threat. 

American and Turkish soldiers had been conducting joint patrols in a zone along the border. As part of that work, barriers designed to protect the Syrian Kurds were dismantled amid assurances that Turkey would not invade.

The pull-back of troops comes hours after the White House announced Ankara would soon move forward with its objective to create a 'safe zone' in northern Syria and that US soldiers will not support or be involved in it. 

But there are fears a Turkish advance will reverse years of work done to drive extremists out and allow ISIS to regroup.

The US-backed SDF that controls much of the northeast region along Turkey's border, added it 'will not hesitate for a single moment' to defend itself from an expected Turkish invasion and threatened 'all-out war on the entire border'.  

France called on Turkey to avoid taking any unilateral action in northern Syria that could hinder the ongoing fight against ISIS.

The statement from the Foreign Ministry Monday warned Turkey's threatened military incursion into northern Syria could 'hurt regional stability' and not help with the return of refugees to the area - as Ankara has promised. 

More French fighters joined the extremist group than any other European nationality. France has been reluctant to allow the militants home, even to face trial. 

Germany also expressed concerns at the prospect of an incursion by Turkey into northeastern Syria, saying such an intervention could further destabilise the war-torn country.

Ulrike Demmer, a spokeswoman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, said today that Germany is aware of the 'special security policy situation' that Turkey faces on its border. 

But she cautioned that successes against ISIS, which she noted were achieved in significant part by Syrian Kurdish forces with international support, 'must not be endangered'. 

Demmer said that a unilateral military intervention 'would lead to a further escalation in Syria and contribute to a continued destabilisation of the country.' She said it would also have negative security policy and humanitarian consequences.

A US official said American forces had evacuated two observation posts at Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn in northeast Syria, along the Turkish border. Other US forces in the region were still in position for now, the official added.

Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria confirmed today that US forces had withdrawn from areas at the border with Turkey where a threatened Turkish offensive would hurt its war against ISIS and roll back five years of security achievements. 

A video posted by a Kurdish news agency showed a convoy of American armored vehicles apparently heading away from the border area of Tal Abyad. 

Pictures also showed abandoned checkpoints in Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn after US troops evacuated the border towns.

Erdogan spoke hours after the White House said US forces in northeastern Syria will move aside and clear the way for an expected Turkish assault - essentially abandoning Kurdish fighters who fought alongside American forces in the years-long battle to defeat ISIS.  

The White House released a statement late on Sunday, saying President Trump spoke with Erogdan by telephone to discuss the plans and the US will remove all of its forces from the 'immediate area'. 

Russia, which has supported President Bashar al-Assad with an aerial bombardment campaign on his own people, said Syria's territorial integrity must be preserved. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow was aware that Turkey shared Russia's position on Syria's territorial integrity, adding: 'We hope that our Turkish colleagues would stick to this position in all situations.'

He reiterated Moscow's stance that all foreign military forces 'with illegal presence' should leave Syria.

Turkey said it will not permit the ISIS to return to the region, amid fears its threatened offensive against a Kurdish militia in Syria could bolster the jihadists. 

Ibrahim Kalin, a presidential spokesman, wrote on Twitter today: 'Turkey will also continue to fight against DAESH (IS) and will not allow it to return in any shape and form.'

The Kurdish-led SDF said the US withdrawal threatened to create a security vacuum that would 'reverse the successful effort to defeat ISIS'.

Abdulkarim Omar, who acts as foreign minister for the Syrian Kurds, said on Monday the statement is unclear as the detention areas are far from the border zone where Turkey is expected to make its incursion.

He said the US troop withdrawal from the border will have 'catastrophic consequences' because Kurdish-led forces would be preoccupied with defending the border, instead of protecting detention facilities or the crowded al-Hol camp which houses over 73,000 people, many of them IS families and supporters.

Omar called on the international community to work to reverse President Donald Trump's 'illogical' decision or stop the Turkish offensive. 

But the European Union simply called for calm in northern Syria and warned that fresh fighting there is only like to drive more people from their homes. 

This would be Turkey's third such incursion since 2016. Motivated largely by the aim of containing Syrian Kurdish power, Turkey already has troops on the ground across an arc of northwestern Syria, the last stronghold of anti-Damascus rebels. 

The US informed the commander of the Kurdish-led SDF forces in Syria on Monday morning that US forces will not defend them from Turkish attacks anywhere, according to a source.  

'Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operating into Northern Syria,' the US statement reads. 

'The Unites States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ''Caliphate,'' will no longer be in the immediate area.' 

The White House also confirmed that Turkey plans to take into custody all ISIS fighters captured over the past two years that European powers have refused to take in. 

'The United States Government has pressed France, Germany, and other European nations, from which many captured ISIS fighters came, to take them back, but they did not want them and refused.'

'The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer. Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area capture over the past two years in the wake of the defeat of the territorial ''Caliphate'' by the United States.' 

Ankara said its planned 'safe zone' in northern Syria could allow up to two million Syrian refugees to return.

The safe zone 'will serve two purposes: secure Turkey's borders by eliminating terrorist elements and allow refugees to return to their homes,' Kalin said.

He said Turkey had 'no interest in occupation or changing demographics'.

There are over 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, the highest number in the world, which has become an increasing source of tension in the country. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation that reports on the war, said US forces had withdrawn from an area between the towns of Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn. 

The SDF, led by the Kurdish YPG militia, said the Turkish invasion 'will have a great negative impact' on the war against ISIS.

It said in a statement: 'Despite our efforts to avoid any military escalation with Turkey and the flexibility we have shown to move forward in establishing a mechanism for the security of the borders ...the American forces did not fulfill their commitments and withdrew their forces from the border areas with Turkey.

'Turkey is now preparing for an invasion operation of northern and eastern Syria,' added the SDF, which with US backing in recent years defeated Islamic State, across much of northern and eastern Syria.

The Turkish military operation 'will have a great negative impact on our war against the Daesh organisation and will destroy everything that has been achieved with regards to stability during the last years,' it added.

In a statement the SDF said: 'The American forces did not abide by their commitments and withdrew their forces along the border with Turkey.  

Syrian Democratic Forces spokesman Mustafa Bali tweeted Saturday, before the announcement was made: 'We will not hesitate to turn any unprovoked attack by Turkey into an all-out war on the entire border to DEFEND ourselves and our people.' 

The Kurds have custody of thousands of captured ISIS militants, including about 2,500 highly dangerous foreign fighters from Europe and elsewhere - their native countries have been reluctant to take them back - and about 10,000 captured fighters from Syria and Iraq.

Kurdish officials have expressed concerns of a possible breakout by ISIS prisoners in case of fighting in the area.

Asked about the White House comments, Erdogan said that both Turkey and the US were working separately to see 'what steps can be taken' so that foreign fighters in prison can be repatriated.

'This is being worked on,' he said today.

A senior UN envoy for Syria said the fighting sides should 'put people first' amid concerns an invasion by Turkish forces into a densely populated area could be triggered. 

Panos Moumtzis, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Syria, speaking in Geneva today, stressed there were 'a lot of unanswered questions' about the consequences of the operation.

He added civilians must be spared in any Turkish military manoeuvres and added that the UN had seen a 'bitter history' of safe zones in places like Srebrenica.

Moumtzis was referring to the slaughter by Bosnian Serb troops of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995 in a UN-declared 'safe zone' where Dutch peacekeepers were unable to protect civilians. 

He said: 'We don't know what is going to happen...we are preparing for the worst.

'We understand that there is going to be some kind of security zone which will be very specifically targeted to a military operation or to an area where there has to be some clearance.

'So our hope is that there will be full cooperation by all to make sure that it happens as smoothly as possible, without resulting in displacement, and ensuring protection of civilians, ensuring that the basic principles of humanity will be respected on the ground.'

He said the UN's priorities were to ensure that any prospective Turkish offensive not result in new displacements, that humanitarian access remain unhindered and that no restrictions be put in place on freedom of movement.

The UN has a contingency plan to address additional civilian suffering, but 'hopes that will not be used,' Moumtzis said.   

More than 1,000 US troops are currently deployed in northeastern Syria but will no longer be present during the invasions. 

The US soldiers work closely with the Kurdish YPG, which leads the Syrian Democratic Forces in the regions. 

Turkey is highly likely to wait until US soldiers have withdrawn from northern Syria before launching an offensive, a senior Turkish official said today.

He added that the withdrawal of US forces from the planned area of operations could take one week and that Ankara was highly likely to wait for this in order to avoid 'any accident'. 

On Monday, the US-backed SDF said such an operation would reverse years of successful Kurdish-led operations to defeat the Islamic State group and allow some of its surviving leaders to come out of hiding.

It also warned that a Turkish invasion would pose a threat to SDF-run prisons and informal settlements housing thousands of IS jihadists and their families.  

Ankara wants to push the US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces from its border, saying that the group is a 'terrorist' offshoot of Kurdish insurgents in Turkey.

The Turkish military has twice launched offensives in Syria - against IS in 2016, and in 2018 against the People's Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the SDF.

Long marginalised, Syria's Kurds have - beyond heavy campaigns against IS - essentially stayed out of the country's eight-year civil war, instead setting up their own institutions in areas under their control.

In the areas of Ras al-Ayn, Tal Abyad and Kobane, all bordering Turkey, Kurdish forces have dug trenches and tunnels in preparation for a Turkish offensive, the Observatory said Sunday. 

The US announcement will likely be seen as a long-feared abandonment of Kurdish allies who bore the brunt of the US-led campaign against the Islamic State militants.