|
| In this photo taken from the Turkish side of the border between Turkey and Syria, in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey, a masked gunman, believed to be an Islamic State militant runs, as he gives orders to Syrian refugees waiting on the Syrian side of the border in order to cross, to return back to the city of Tal Abyad, Syria, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Several militants pushed the refugees back towards the city but later the refugees massed again near the border fence in hope to flee intense fighting between Syrian Kurds and militants from the Islamic State group in nearby towns and villages. The mass displacement of Syrians came as Kurdish fighters announced they are making headway toward Tal Abyad, the stronghold of the extremist group near the Turkish border. |
AKCAKALE, Turkey
(AP) -- Thousands of Syrians cut through a border fence and crossed
over into Turkey on Sunday, fleeing intense fighting in northern Syria
between Kurdish fighters and jihadis.
The flow
of refugees came as Syrian Kurdish fighters closed in on the outskirts
of a strategic Islamic State-held town on the Turkish border, Kurdish
officials and an activist group said, potentially cutting off a key
supply line for the extremists' nearby de facto capital.
Taking
Tal Abyad, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the Islamic State
stronghold of Raqqa, would deprive the militant group of a direct route
to bring in new foreign militants or supplies. The Kurdish advance,
coming under the cover of intense U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in the
area, would also link their two fronts and put even more pressure on
Raqqa.
In this Turkish border village, the
refugees took by surprise the Turkish troops stationed there, who were
overwhelmed by the large number of people crowding the crossing.
Thousands of people had been gathering for more than a day on the Syrian
side of the Akcakale border crossing before they broke through Sunday
afternoon.
People threw their belongings over
the fence while others passed infants into Turkey over barbed wires
before following through a several-meter wide opening in the border
fence.
Turkish troops later brought in
reinforcements and gathered up the refugees on the Turkish side of the
border, preventing them from going deeper into Turkey.
Earlier
Sunday, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus speaking on the
refugee situation at the crossing between in Tal Abyad and Akcakale,
claimed that those refugees were not fleeing fighting between Kurds and
the Islamic State group, but were rather trying to escape to Turkey in
case their villages are hit by U.S.-led coalition bombings.
He
said Turkey was providing humanitarian aid to them on the other side of
the border while taking in anyone who is sick or injured. Kurtulmus
said Turkey has taken in more than 2 million refugees since 2011.
"We
are of the opinion that there isn't a humanitarian tragedy there,"
Kurtulmus told CNN-Turk television in an interview. "Our priority is for
them to remain within their border. We will continue to provide
humanitarian aid to them"
Hours after
Kurtulmus spoke, Turkey reversed its decision and opened the border to
allow more of the refugees in, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. It
said however that this time, Islamic State group militants at the
border prevented them from crossing into Turkey.
It
put the number of people who were waiting to cross at around 2,500.
Around 13,400 Syrians have fled to Turkey since June 1, the agency said.
On
Sunday, Kurdish official Idriss Naasan said that Islamic State fighters
have fled from Suluk, a few kilometers (miles) southwest of Tal Abyad,
and that Kurds now hold the town. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights also said Islamic State fighters had withdrawn. The
Observatory said the Kurds are about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Tal
Abyad.
The Observatory reported later that
Kurdish fighters captured more villages near Tal Abyad on Sunday adding
that jihadis blew up to bridges southeast and southwest of the town to
prevent them from pushing forward.
"It's only a
matter of time before this area is liberated," Naasan told The
Associated Press by telephone from northern Syria, saying the Kurds
surround Tal Abyad from the east, west and south. The Turkish border -
and the soldiers there - now hem the extremists in from the north.
However,
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Observatory, said Islamic State
fighters still control the road linking the Turkish border with Raqqa.
Brett
McGurk, the U.S. deputy special presidential envoy for the global
coalition to counter the Islamic State group, told NBC's "Meet the
Press" program on Sunday that Kurdish fighters and other units in Syria
are scoring major territorial gains against the Islamic state group.
Using an alternative acronym for the group, McGurk said the Kurdish
fighters are "really giving a beating to ISIS and they're very close to
cutting off the main supply route that ISIS has into its capital of
Raqqa."
Since the beginning of May, members of
the main Syrian Kurdish force, the People's Protection Units, or YPG,
have taken more than 200 small Kurdish and Christian towns in
northeastern Syria, as well as strategic mountains seized earlier by the
Islamic State group.
They have pushed into
Raqqa province, a stronghold of the Islamic State group. Along the way,
they have picked up ammunition, weapons and vehicles left behind by the
jihadis, almost mirroring the way the extremists overran Iraqi positions
last year in their sweep across a third of that country.
The
Islamic State group has declared areas of Syria and Iraq it holds as
part of its self-declared caliphate, demanding the loyalty of the
world's Muslims. Their gruesome propaganda videos of mass killings have
drawn in foreign fighters, many coming in over the border from Turkey.
Even
if the Kurds cut off Tal Abyad from Raqqa, the Islamic State group
could bring in fighters across the border in Syria's Aleppo province,
where they still hold ground. However, that would be an indirect route
that could expose them to other fighting amid the long Syrian civil war
against President Bashar Assad.
In Syria, a
country now split mostly between Islamic militants and forces loyal to
Assad, the U.S. has found a reliable partner in the YPG, the country's
strongest Kurdish militia. They are moderate, mostly secular fighters,
driven by revolutionary fervor and a desire to eventually have a nation
of their own carved out in the region.
U.S.
airstrikes continued Sunday in the area, as an Associated Press
journalist on the Turkish side of the border from Tal Abyad saw one
strike east of the town.
Nasser Haj Mansour, a
defense official in Syria's Kurdish region, said YPG officials are
coordinating with the U.S.-led coalition regarding a possible attack on
Tal Abyad. He added that the aerial coverage prevented the Islamic State
group from bringing reinforcements to the area.
