ISTANBUL/BEIRUT - Turkey intensified its air and artillery strikes in northeast Syria on Friday , escalating an offensive against Kurdish militia that has drawn warnings of humanitarian catastrophe and turned some Republican lawmakers against US President Donald Trump.
The Turkish incursion was launched after Trump spoke by phone with Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan and withdrew US troops who had been fighting alongside Kurdish forces against ISIS. It has opened a new front in the eight-year Syrian civil war and drawn international condemnation. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Trump had authorized the drafting of"very significant" new sanctions against Turkey, a NATO ally, adding Washington was not activating the curbs now but would do so if necessary."We can shut down the Turkish economy if we need to," Mnuchin said.
Some 120km to the west, Turkey resumed shelling near Tel Abyad town, a witness said. The Kurdish fighters called it the most intense fighting in three days of battles there. A Kurdish official who oversees aid work in northeast Syria, Khaled Ibrahim, said water to Hasaka city and nearby areas was cut by Turkish shelling that damaged a pumping station. It had provided safe water for at least 400,000 people, UNICEF said.
The Turkish president threatened to send refugees to Europe if the European Union did not back his assault. That prompted a furious response from the EU.
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