Turkey launches Syria invasion hours after informing US of plans
Turkey told the United States on Tuesday that it plans to launch an attack into northern Syria within 24 hours, Al-Monitor has learned, as some in the Donald Trump administration tried to push back against reports that the president had given a green light for the impending incursion.
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Calibri; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} Turkey has launched an attack into northern Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Wednesday, just hours after Ankara informed the United States that it planned to launch an incursion within a day’s time.
Ankara's notice came in a statement to the US ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield, a senior administration official said. In signaling the intent to invade, Erdogan appeared to buck threats of “economic obliteration” made by President Donald Trump on Monday, including possible sanctions.
It was not immediately clear what assets Turkey would use in the attack, though US partners on the ground said on Wednesday that warplanes had begun to carry out strikes against civilian areas. Experts who spoke to Al-Monitor said the incursion would likely be limited and face stiff resistance from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have received backing from the Pentagon.
“I think they have no intention of going deeper than 30 [kilometers],” Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East program at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, said of Turkey’s military plans. “[The attack] will achieve rapid success only to be hit with an insurgency.”
