Turkey presses offensive in Syria, Erdogan hits out at critics

ISTANBUL: Turkey pressed its military offensive against US-allied Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria on Thursday , shelling towns and bombing targets from the air in an operation that has forced thousands of people to flee their homes.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told members of his AK Party in Ankara that 109 militants had been killed so far in the two days of fighting, while Kurds said they were resisting the assault.According to a senior Turkish security official, armed forces struck weapons and ammunition depots, gun and sniper positions, tunnels and military bases.

But world powers fear the operation could intensify Syria's eight-year-old conflict, and runs the risk of Islamic State prisoners escaping from camps amid the chaos.Erdogan sought to assuage those concerns, saying that militants from the jihadist group would not be allowed to rebuild a presence in the region.

The Turkish operation began days after a pullback by US forces from the border, and senior members of US President Donald Trump's own Republican Party condemned him for making way for the incursion.Ankara brands the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia as terrorists because of their ties to militants who have waged an insurgency in Turkey. But many members of Congress, and US officials, credit the Kurds with fighting alongside American troops to defeat Islamic State militants.

Their proposed sanctions would target the assets of senior officials including Erdogan, mandate sanctions over Turkey's purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defence system and impose visa restrictions.

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