Turkey threatens to strike Kurdish forces in Iraq, Syria

Erdogan: U.S. must dissolve alliance with fighters

BEIRUT — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday threatened to strike Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria, as the U.S.backed forces in Syria closed in on the last neighborhoods of a former stronghold of the Islamic State extremist group.

The U.S. views the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as the most effective partner to counter the Islamic State in northern Syria, an assessment bolstered by the Syrian Democratic Forces’ steady advances against the jihadis. But it has complicated relations with Turkey, which views the group’s Kurdish component as an extension of a terror group operating inside Turkey’s own borders.

In Istanbul, Erdogan insisted that U.S. support for Kurdish groups “must come to an end,” and he said he would bring up the matter at a meeting with President Donald Trump this month.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes Arab fighters, seized six neighborhoods from Islamic State militants in Tabqa on Sunday, according to the Kurdish-run Hawar news agency.

Tabqa is 25 miles southeast of the Islamic State’s declared capital, Raqqa, and is an important stronghold for the militants. It lies next to the Tabqa Dam, one of several controlling the flow of the Euphrates River.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said the Syrian Democratic Forces’ control of Tabqa was “practically total.”

A U.S. airlift of artillery and special forces advisers behind Islamic State lines in March was a turning point in the Tabqa offensive and underscored the closeness between Washington and the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Turkey, however, has remained hostile to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, which forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces. The Kurdish fighters are close to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey, which is an insurgent group designated as a terror organization by NATO and the U.S.

Last week, Turkey struck at People’s Protection Units positions inside Syria, killing 20 fighters and media activists, according to the group, prompting Kurdish parties to call for a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone over northern Syria.

U.S. troops were seen Saturday in armored vehicles in Kurdish areas of Syria, a show of force apparently intended to dissuade Turkey and Syrian Kurdish forces from attacking one another. Kurdish officials describe the U.S. troop movement as a “buffer” between the Kurds and Turkey.

Video from northern Syria showed the U.S. patrols alongside Kurds flying the People’s Protection Units flag.

“We will be forced to continue [our offensives],” Erdogan said. “We won’t provide a date and time for when we’ll come. But they will know that the Turkish military can come.”

Erdogan is to visit Washington on May 16 for his first meeting with Trump.

The People’s Protection Units is distrusted by Turkish-backed anti-government forces in Syria, who say the group is an ally of President Bashar Assad’s government. The People’s Protection Units and Syrian government forces have largely avoided confrontation over the course of the country’s 6-year-old civil war.

Other Kurdish parties accuse the group’s political arm, the Democratic Union Party, of squelching dissent and embracing authoritarianism.

In other developments, more than 1,000 residents of Damascus suburbs demonstrated against rebel infighting, activists said, only to be met at one demonstration by rebels who tried to disperse the protest with gunfire.

Videos from the Arbin suburb showed demonstrators scrambling for cover after gunmen dressed in military fatigues lined up in front of the march and fired, largely into the air.

Seven protesters were wounded, according to the activist-run Ghouta Media Center, which posted the video. The Observatory said 12 people were wounded. The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled.

Demonstrators blamed the Army of Islam group for trying to suppress the march.

The infighting pits the Army of Islam against the al-Rahman Corps and the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee. Each side blames the other for triggering the fighting in the power struggle over control of eastern Ghouta.

The area, which includes Arbin, has been held under siege by government forces for more than three years.

In 48 hours of fighting, at least 87 insurgents from the warring sides were killed, according to the Observatory. Eight civilians were also killed.

APTV This still image taken from video, shows an American soldier looking out of an armored vehicle Saturday in the northern village of Darbasiyah, Syria. U.S. moved troops and armored vehicles through several Syrian cities and towns on Friday and Saturday...