Turkey vows to battle on as 14 troops killed in Syria

Istanbul/ AFP

Turkey on Thursday vowed to press on with the fight against “terror”, a day after 14 Turkish soldiers were killed by extremists in an intensifying battle for a flashpoint Syrian town, Ankara’s biggest loss of its Syria campaign so far. The soldiers were killed in a succession of attacks by IS extremists around the town of Al-Bab on Wednesday that included three suicide car bombings.
The heavy toll showed the intensifying battle for Al Bab, which Turkish forces have been seeking to capture for weeks in the biggest test of their four-month incursion into Syria.
Turkish troops entered Syria on August 24 in support of pro-Ankara Syrian rebels, with the aim of ousting IS extremists as well as Kurdish militia from the border area.
The campaign—dubbed Euphrates Shield—was launched as Turkey has been hit by the bloodiest attacks in its modern history, blamed on extremists and Kurdish militants.
“Turkey is in the midst of a great struggle—our fight against terror continues both in our country and outside our borders,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, yesterday in the Euphrates Shield campaign around Al Bab… we lost 14 brave martyrs.
“This is an existential struggle for Turkey. This is a great battle in the name of Turkey’s unity. We will always guard this unity to the end in the face of terror.” Turkish television showed distraught relatives of the dead dealing with the news and putting Turkish flags outside their homes in a traditional gesture of respect.

‘Sooner or later’
The earlier part of Turkey’s campaign proceeded with lightning speed and the border town of Jarabulus was taken on the first day of the offensive.
But the army has suffered increasing casualties in the fight for Al Bab—25 kilometres (15 miles) from the border—with some three dozen soldiers believed to have been killed
so far.
The army said the latest clashes erupted around a weapons depot that had been used by IS for the last two years. Thirty-three soldiers were also wounded, six of them seriously.
It said 138 IS extremists were killed in the fighting. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late Tuesday expressed confidence that Al Bab would be taken from IS. “Al Bab has been completely besieged by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and our soldiers,” he said, expressing hope that the town “would fall entirely, sooner or later”.
Al Bab lies 35 kilometres northeast of Aleppo, which is about to be recaptured by forces of President Bashar al-Assad in the biggest defeat for rebels in the civil war.
Turkey has been a key backer of the rebels and insists the ouster of Assad is the only way to bring peace to Syria.
But Ankara has stayed out of the most recent battle for Aleppo and worked with Assad’s key ally Russia to broker evacuations from the city.
Some have suggested there has been a secret agreement between Turkey and Russia to give Moscow a free hand in Aleppo but stay out of the Turkish operation.
But a Turkish foreign ministry official this week denied that there had been any “bargain” struck between the two countries.
The official acknowledged that the Al Bab operation was “difficult” but would continue, adding that afterwards the forces would seek to assert control over Manbic, northeast of the town.