Syrian army moves to confront Turkish forces after U.S. announces withdrawal | CBC News

Russia-backed Syrian forces wasted no time in taking advantage of an abrupt U.S. retreat from Syria on Monday, deploying deep inside Kurdish-held territory south of the Turkish frontier less than 24 hours after Washington announced a full withdrawal.Syrian government troops moved into towns and villages in northern Syria, including Tel Tamer, setting up a potential clash with Turkish-led forces advancing in the area. (Baderkhan Ahmad/The Associated Press)Russia-backed Syrian forces wasted no time in taking advantage of an abrupt U.S. retreat from Syria on Monday, deploying deep inside Kurdish-held territory south of the Turkish frontier less than 24 hours after Washington announced a full withdrawal. Washington’s former Kurdish allies said they had brought in the Syrian troops as an “emergency measure” to help fend off an assault by Turkey, launched last week with “a green light” from U.S. President Donald Trump that the Kurds describe as a betrayal.The Syrian government began deploying on Monday in a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad and his principal ally Russia, which gained a military foothold across the biggest swathe of the country that had been beyond grasp. Syrian state media reported that the army entered the Kurdish-held town of Manbij, hours after Turkey-backed opposition fighters announced that they are advancing on the city. SANA news agency gave no further details. Monday’s move was expected, coming a day after Syrian Kurdish militias struck an alliance with government forces to help fend off the Turkish offensive. Manbij houses U.S. troops, and a U.S. official said troops are still in the flashpoint city, preparing to leave. Earlier, state media reported that troops had entered Tel Tamer, a town on the strategically important M4 highway that runs east-west around 30 kilometres south of the frontier with Turkey. State TV also showed residents welcoming Syrian forces into the town of Ayn Issa, which lies on another part of the highway, hundreds of kilometres away. A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) media official said he could not confirm these deployments. In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, people welcome Syrian troops as they enter the town of Ayn Issa, north of Raqqa, on Monday. (SANA/The Associated Press) Ayn Issa commands the northern approaches to Raqqa, former capital of the ISIS self-proclaimed caliphate, which Kurdish fighters recaptured from militants two years ago in one of the biggest victories of a U.S.-led campaign. Much of the M4 lies on the southern edge of territory where Turkey aims to set up a “safe zone” inside Syria. Turkey said it had seized part of the highway. An official of the SDF said clashes were ongoing. U.S. strategy fails The swift Syrian government deployments came as the strategy the U.S. has pursued in Syria over the past five years crumbled overnight. Washington announced on Sunday it was abruptly pulling out its entire force of 1,000 troops that had fought alongside Syrian Kurds against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) since 2014. A U.S. official said on Monday a diplomatic team working to help stabilize territory captured from the ISIS’s caliphate had already been pulled out. U.S. troops were still on the ground, but early phases of their withdrawal had started, the official said. Two other U.S. officials have said the bulk of the U.S. pullout could be completed within days. Sunday’s announcement of the U.S. retreat came just a week after Trump said he would shift a small number of troops out of the way, allowing Turkey to attack the Kurds in what they described as a stab in the back. Thousands of Kurdish fighters and their allies have died fighting ISIS in a close partnership with the U.S., a strategy the Trump administration had continued after inheriting it from his predecessor Barack Obama. Smoke rises above the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad, as seen from Akcakale, Turkey, on Sunday. (Stoyan Nenov/Reuters) Trump’s policy reversal allowed Turkey to launch a cross-border assault last week that sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing and the Kurds scrambling to find new friends. “After the Americans abandoned the region and gave the green light for the Turkish attack, we were forced to explore another option,” senior Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurd said. Jia Kurd described the arrangement with Assad’s forces as a “preliminary military agreement,” and said political aspects would be discussed later. The Kurds have led an autonomous administration in the area they controlled. Assad aims to restore his government’s authority across all of Syria after more than eight years of civil war. Dire situation worsening, UN says  According to United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, at least 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the Turkish offensive began on Oct. 9, mostly from violence around the towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn. Dujarric told reporters that the UN World Food Program has so far provided immediate food assistance to more than 70,000 people fleeing towns as the fighting continues. “Most of the displaced are staying with relatives or host communities, but increasing numbers are arriving at collective shelters in the area,” he said. Northeast Syria was already facing a humanitarian crisis before the Turkish offensive, with 1.8 million of the three million women, children and men in the region in need of assistance, “including over 910,000 in acute need,” Dujarric said. He said there are also “heightened concerns” for vulnerable people in camps for the displaced, including al-Hol. That camp holds some 68,000 people who fled the last battlefields of ISIS — 94 per cent of them women and children. Turkey, however, justified its ongoing invasion of northeast Syria to the UN by saying it’s exercising its right to self-defence under the UN Charter, according to a letter circulated Monday. Ankara said the military offensive was undertaken to counter an “imminent terrorist threat” and to ensure the security of its borders from ISIS and Syrian Kurdish militias, whom it calls “terrorists.” Turkey’s UN Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu said in the letter to the Security Council dated Oct. 9 that its counter-terrorism operation will be “proportionate, measured and responsible.” “The operation will target only terrorists and their hideouts, shelters, emplacements, weapons, vehicles and equipment,” he said. “All precautions are taken to avoid collateral damage to the civilian population.” Boys wave Turkish flags as a military convoy drives near the border town of Akcakale in the Turkish province of Sanliurfa near the border of Syria on Monday. Turkey has pressed on with its offensive into northern Syria. (Kemal Aslan/Reuters) The Turkish assault has raised Western concerns that the Kurds, holding large swathes of northern Syria previously controlled by ISIS, would be unable to keep thousands of jihadists in jail and tens of thousands of their family members in camps. The region’s Kurdish-led administration said 785 ISIS-affiliated foreigners escaped a camp at Ayn Issa over the weekend. The British-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, citing sources in the camp, said around 100 people had escaped. Trump said Monday that Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria may be releasing captive ISIS militants to lure U.S. troops back to the area, adding they could be easily recaptured. International condemnation  The EU unanimously condemned Turkey’s military move into northern Syria and asked all member states to stop selling arms to the nation. Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said the 28 member states “have unanimously decided to condemn — that is the verb, not concern, not worry — but to condemn in strong terms what in the end is a military attack.” Borrell said the EU called on Turkey “to stop immediately these military actions.” He said that at the meeting of EU foreign ministers, the member states “call also [on] all member states to stop selling any kind of arms” to Turkey. On Monday, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for ‘immediate de-escalation’ in the Turkish offensive in northeast Syria (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) UN Secretary General António Guterres on Monday called for “immediate de-escalation” and urged all parties to resolve their differences through peaceful means. Iran’s president also called on Turkey to halt its military offensive. “We do not accept the method that they have chosen,” Hassan Rouhani said at a press conference on Monday in his first direct comments on the offensive. Iran and Russia have allied with the Syrian government in the country’s eight-year war.