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Turkey jails 17 over Istanbul attack

Paramedics help casualties outside Turkey's largest airport, Istanbul Ataturk, Turkey, following a blast

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey jailed 17 suspects on Tuesday, mostly foreigners, over last week’s suicide bombing at Istanbul’s main airport, which President Tayyip Erdogan described as the work of Islamic State militants from the ex-Soviet Union.

The arrests bring the total number of people jailed pending trial to 30 over the triple suicide bombing at Ataturk Airport, which killed 45 people and wounded hundreds, the deadliest in a series of bombings this year in Turkey.

It was followed by major attacks in Bangladesh, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the past week, all apparently timed for the runup to Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Ramadan holy fasting month.

“The incident is of course completely within the framework of Daesh, a process conducted with their methods,” Erdogan told reporters after praying at an Istanbul mosque at the start of the holiday. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Three bombers opened fire to create panic outside the airport before two of them got inside and blew themselves up. The third militant detonated his explosives outside at the entrance to the international arrivals terminal.

“There are people from Dagestan, from Kyrgyzstan, from Tajikistan,” Erdogan said, referring to a mainly Muslim province of Russia’s North Caucasus region, and two former Soviet states in Central Asia. “Unfortunately, people from neighboring northern Caucasus countries are involved in this business.”

The 17 remanded in custody early on Tuesday included 11 foreigners. All were accused of “membership of an armed terrorist organization”, the private Dogan news agency said. Thirteen others were jailed on Sunday, including three foreigners.

The state-run Andolu news agency said last week that two of the bombers were Russian nationals. One government official has said the attackers were Russian, Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationals.

Moscow says that thousands of Russian citizens and citizens of other former Soviet states have joined Islamic State, traveling through Turkey to reach Syria. Russia fought two wars against Chechen separatists in the North Causcasus in the 1990s, and more recently has fought Islamist insurgents in Dagestan.

Russia and Turkey have been at odds over Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey’s backing of rebels opposed to him, especially since last year when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the border.

But recent weeks have seen a thaw in relations between the two countries, with both citing a need to bury their differences to fight the common Islamic State foe.

The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper has said the organizer of the attack was suspected to be a Chechen double-amputee called Akhmed Chatayev. He is identified on a United Nations sanctions list as an Islamic State leader responsible for training Russian-speaking militants.

SUSPECTS DENY ALLEGATIONS

During questioning in court, as reported by Dogan, the suspects denied links to the bombers.

One of them, identified as a Russian citizen named as Smail A., said he stayed in a crowded house where he thought he would be able to read the Koran.

“When the police caught us they said terrorists had stayed there previously, but we didn’t know. I was in that house at the wrong time,” he was quoted as saying during questioning.

A suspect identified as Kamil D., also a Russian citizen, denied knowing one of the bombers, who has been identified as Rahim Bulgarov.

“The people constantly changed in the house where we stayed. Maybe he came and stayed but I don’t know him,” he said.

A third suspect, Turkish citizen Cengizhan C., said he embraced the views of Islamic State after following related groups on Facebook.

“I learned Daesh ideas. I bonded with them idea-wise. I believed what they stood for,” he said, adding he traveled to the border province of Sanliurfa with the aim of joining them in Syria but had been dissuaded from doing so.

In the wake of the attack, Turkey has beefed up security at airports and train stations, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Monday ahead Eid al-Fitr, which continues until Thursday.

Turkey is a member of a U.S.-led coalition fighting against Islamic State. It also faces a separate security threat from a Kurdish insurgency in its largely Kurdish southeast.

(Writing by Daren Butler; editing by David Dolan and Peter Graff)

Gaza receives first Turkish aid shipment after Israel-Turkey deal

Palestinians check Turkish aid shipments upon arrival in the Gaza Strip at Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and southern Gaza Strip

GAZA (Reuters) – Turkish aid shipments arrived in the Gaza Strip via Israel on Monday, a week after Israel and Turkey announced they would end a six-year rupture and normalize ties.

About 11,000 tonnes of cargo, including clothing, toys and medicines destined for the Palestinian coastal territory, were ferried to the Israeli port of Ashdod by a Turkish ship that docked on Sunday.

Under the supervision of the Turkish Red Crescent Society, the first of about 500 trucks carrying the aid entered the Gaza Strip, territory controlled by Hamas Islamists, through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, witnesses said.

Relations between Israel and Turkey crumbled after Israeli marines stormed a Turkish ship in May 2010 challenging Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip and killed 10 Turkish activists during fighting on board.

Last week’s rare rapprochement in the divided Middle East was driven by the prospect of lucrative Mediterranean gas deals as well as mutual concern over growing security risks, and included an Israeli pledge to enable Turkey to send aid to Gaza.

“This is the first (aid) ship after the Turkish and the Israeli governments’ agreement,” said Kerem Kinik, president of the Turkish Red Crescent, who traveled to Gaza to supervise the distribution of the goods.

He said Turkey would provide “continuous, regular humanitarian assistance” for the territory.

Last week, some 3,400 trucks carrying 107,500 tonnes of goods, including medical supplies, electronic devices, consumer goods and construction material, entered the Gaza Strip via Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

Gaza merchants can import commercial goods from Israel and elsewhere but Israel restricts the entry into the territory of so-called dual-use items, saying they can be used to make weapons and build fortifications.

Egypt, which is at odds with Hamas, keeps its border with Gaza largely closed.

(Reporting by Nidal Almughrabi; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Turkey proposes cooperation with Russia in fighting Islamic State

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during an iftar event in Ankara, Turkey, June 27, 2016

By Ece Toksabay and Dmitry Solovyov

ANKARA/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Turkey said on Monday it wanted to cooperate with Moscow in combating Islamic State in Syria but denied having suggested it might allow Russia to use its Incirlik Air Base, near the Syrian frontier.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan last week expressed regret over last year’s shooting down of a Russian warplane, with the loss of the pilot. Moscow, which had broken off virtually all economic ties and banned tourists from visiting Turkish resorts, pledged in return to help rebuild relations.

In an interview with Turkish state television on Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had appeared to suggest Ankara could open up Incirlik to Russia, a move that could raise concern among Turkey’s NATO partners already using the base, including the United States.

But Cavusoglu, in comments broadcast live on television on Monday, denied such an interpretation of his words.

“We said that we could cooperate with Russia in the period ahead in the fight against Daesh (Islamic State)…I did not make any comment referring to Russian planes coming to the Incirlik Air Base.”

Incirlik hosts aircraft from the United States, Germany, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar involved in the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, which has controlled extensive territories along Syria’s border with Turkey.

“We will cooperate with everyone who fights Daesh,” he told TRT Haber in Sunday’s remarks. “We have been doing this for quite a while, and we opened Incirlik Air Base for those who want to join the active fight against Daesh.

“Why not cooperate with Russia as well on these terms? Daesh is our common enemy, and we need to fight this enemy.”

The Kremlin described the notion that Turkey could open up Incirlik as a “serious statement” although it said it had not had any contact with Ankara on the matter.

REVIVAL

Russia said it was looking to “revive” the sharing of information with Turkey in the fight against Islamic State.

“Channels to exchange information with Turkey have not been working lately. We now have to revive and relaunch them,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Last week’s bomb attack on the main airport Istanbul – which left 45 people dead and hundreds wounded – showed the importance of working together to counter terrorism, he said.

Russian nationals have been identified as two of the three suspected Islamic States suicide bombers behind the airport attack, which is thought to have been masterminded by a Chechen, Turkish media said on Friday.

The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper has said the organiser of the attack, the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in NATO-member Turkey this year, was suspected to be a Chechen double-amputee called Akhmed Chatayev.

Chatayev is identified on a United Nations sanctions list as a leader in Islamic State responsible for training Russian-speaking militants.

In many cases these fighters have been influenced by Islamist insurgencies at home, pushed out of their own countries by security crackdowns, and won advancement in Islamic State through their military skills and ruthlessness.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

U.S. led strikes against Islamic State in Iraq, kill 250 fighters

A still image from video released by the Iraqi military on June 30, 2016 shows aerial infrared footage showing airstrikes on what the Iraqi military said was a convoy of Islamic State fighters fleeing Falluja

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S.-led coalition aircraft waged a series of deadly strikes against Islamic State around the city of Falluja on Wednesday, U.S. officials told Reuters, with one citing a preliminary estimate of at least 250 suspected fighters killed and at least 40 vehicles destroyed.

If the figures are confirmed, the strikes would be among the most deadly ever against the jihadist group. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the operation and noted preliminary estimates can change.

The strikes, which the officials said took place south of the city, where civilians have also been displaced, are just the latest battlefield setback suffered by Islamic State in its self-proclaimed “caliphate” of Iraq and Syria.

The group’s territorial losses are not diminishing concerns about its intent and ability to strike abroad though. Turkey pointed the finger at Islamic State on Wednesday for a triple suicide bombing and gun attack that killed 41 people at Istanbul’s main airport.

CIA chief John Brennan told a forum in Washington the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamic State “depravity” and acknowledged there was a long road ahead battling the group, particularly its ability to incite attacks.

“We’ve made, I think, some significant progress, along with our coalition partners, in Syria and Iraq, where most of the ISIS members are resident right now,” Brennan said.

“But ISIS’ ability to continue to propagate its narrative, as well as to incite and carry out these attacks — I think we still have a ways to go before we’re able to say that we have made some significant progress against them.”

On the battlefield, the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State has moved up a gear in recent weeks, with the government declaring victory over Islamic State in Falluja.

An alliance of militias have also launched a major offensive against the militant group in the city of Manbij in northern Syria.

Still, in a reminder of the back-and-forth nature of the war, U.S.-backed Syrian rebels were pushed back from the outskirts of an Islamic State-held town on the border with Iraq and a nearby air base on Wednesday after the jihadists mounted a counter- attack, two rebel sources said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Warren Strobel in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese)

Two explosions hit Istanbul’s main Ataturk airport, at least 10 dead

Paramedics push a stretcher at Turkey's largest airport, Istanbul Ataturk

By Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Two suicide bombers opened fire before blowing themselves up at the entrance to the main international airport in Istanbul on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding many more, Turkish officials and witnesses said.

Police fired shots to try to stop the attackers just before they reached a security checkpoint at the arrivals hall of the Ataturk airport but they blew themselves up, one of the officials said.

Speaking in parliament, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said that based on initial information he could only confirm there had been one attacker. He said 10 people were killed and around 20 wounded.

“According to information I have received, at the entrance to the Ataturk Airport international terminal a terrorist first opened fire with a Kalashnikov and then blew themself up,” he said in comments broadcast by CNN Turk.

The state-run Anadolu agency said around 60 people were wounded, six of them seriously.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Ataturk is Turkey’s largest airport and a major transport hub for international travelers. Pictures posted on social media from the site showed wounded people lying on the ground inside and outside one of the terminal buildings.

A witness told Reuters security officials prevented his taxi and other cars from entering the airport at around 9:50 pm (02:50 p.m. EDT). Drivers leaving the terminal shouted “Don’t enter! A bomb exploded!” from their windows to incoming traffic, he said.

Television footage showed ambulances rushing to the scene. One witness told CNN Turk that gunfire was heard from the car park at the airport. Taxis were ferrying wounded people from the airport, the witness said.

FLIGHTS HALTED

The head of Red Crescent, Kerem Kinik, said on CNN Turk that people should go to blood donation centres and not hospitals to give blood and called on people to avoid main roads to the airport to avoid blocking path of emergency vehicles.

Authorities halted the takeoff of scheduled flights from the airport and passengers were transferred to hotels, a Turkish Airlines official said. Earlier an airport official said some flights to the airport had been diverted.

Turkey has suffered a spate of bombings this year, including two suicide attacks in tourist areas of Istanbul blamed on Islamic State, and two car bombings in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish militant group.

In the most recent attack, a car bomb ripped through a police bus in central Istanbul during the morning rush hour, killing 11 people and wounding 36 near the main tourist district, a major university and the mayor’s office.

Turkey, which is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, is also fighting Kurdish militants in its largely Kurdish southeast.

(Reporting by Istanbul bureau; Writing by David Dolan and Nick Tattesall; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Kremlin dents Turkish hopes for quick restoration of ties

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan walks with his Russian counterpart Putin prior to their meeting at the Group of 20 (G20) leaders summit in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, Turkey

By Denis Pinchuk and Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Tuesday it would take more than a few days to mend Russia’s relations with Ankara, after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan expressed regret over the downing of a Russian military plane last year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had said an apology from Erdogan was the condition for repairing relations between the two countries, which were poisoned when the Russian jet was shot down near the Syrian-Turkish border in November.

After writing to Putin to voice his regret over the incident, Erdogan said he now believed that Ankara would normalize relations with Moscow “rapidly”.

The Kremlin was more cautious on Tuesday.

“One should not think it possible to normalize everything within a few days, but work in this direction will continue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with journalists.

“President Putin has expressed more than once his willingness to uphold good relations with Turkey and the Turkish people,” Peskov said. “Now a very important step has been made in this respect.”

Putin and Erdogan will hold a telephone conversation at Moscow’s initiative on Wednesday, Peskov said.

Ankara said it shot down the plane because it entered Turkish airspace, an allegation Moscow denies. The Russian pilot ejected from the plane but was killed by gunfire from rebels on the ground in Syria as he parachuted down to earth.

Moscow, which imposed economic sanctions on Ankara over the downed plane, had said that apart from official apologies it also wanted Turkey to pay compensation for the incident.

However, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday that Turkey would not pay compensation to Russia over the downing of the plane.

Yildirim also told reporters in parliament that legal proceedings were underway against an individual allegedly responsible for the killing of the Russian pilot.

(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Christian Lowe)

Israel, Turkey restore ties in deal spurred by energy prospects

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks on during a meeting with his Italian counterpart Matteo Renzi at Chigi Palace in Rome, Italy June 27, 2016.

By Ercan Gurses and Jeffrey Heller

ANKARA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel and Turkey announced on Monday they would normalize ties after a six-year rupture, a rare rapprochement in the divided Middle East driven by the prospect of lucrative Mediterranean gas deals as well as mutual fears over growing security risks.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the two countries would exchange ambassadors as soon as possible.

The mending in relations between the once-firm allies after years of negotiations raises the prospect of eventual cooperation to exploit natural gas reserves worth hundreds of billions of dollars under the eastern Mediterranean, officials have said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it opened the way for possible Israeli gas supplies to Europe via Turkey.

The move also comes as the Middle East is polarized by Syria’s civil war and as the rise of Islamic State threatens regional security, leaving both countries in need of new alliances.

Relations between Israel and what was once its only Muslim ally crumbled after Israeli marines stormed an aid ship in May 2010 to enforce a naval blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and killed 10 Turkish activists on board.

Speaking after meeting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Rome, Netanyahu said the agreement was an important step. “It has also immense implications for the Israeli economy, and I use that word advisedly,” he told reporters.

Kerry welcomed the deal, saying, “We are obviously pleased in the administration. This is a step we wanted to see happen.”

Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador and froze military cooperation after a 2011 U.N. report into the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara largely exonerated the Jewish state. Israel and NATO member Turkey, which both border Syria, reduced intelligence sharing and canceled joint military exercises.

Netanyahu made clear the naval blockade of Gaza, which Ankara had wanted lifted under the deal, would remain in force, although humanitarian aid could continue to be transferred to Gaza via Israeli ports.

“This is a supreme security interest of ours. I was not willing to compromise on it. This interest is essential to prevent the force-buildup by Hamas and it remains as has been and is,” Netanyahu said.

But Yildirim said the “wholesale” blockade of Gaza was largely lifted under the deal, enabling Turkey to deliver humanitarian aid and other non-military products.

A first shipment of 10,000 tonnes would be sent next Friday, he said, and work would begin immediately to tackle Gaza’s water and power supply crisis.

“Our Palestinian brothers in Gaza have suffered a lot and we have made it possible for them to take a breath with this agreement,” Yildirim told a news conference in Ankara.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by phone on Sunday night and told him the deal would improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, sources in his office said. They said Western-backed Abbas, who lost control of Gaza to Hamas in fighting in 2007, had expressed satisfaction.

ENERGY TIES

Restoring relations with Ankara is a linchpin in Israel’s strategy to unlock its natural gas wealth. It is looking for export markets and is exploring a pipeline to Turkey as one option, both for consumers there and as a connection to Europe.

“This is a strategic matter for the state of Israel. This matter could not have been advanced without this agreement, and now we will take action to advance it,” Netanyahu said.

Gas, he said, had the potential to strengthen Israel’s coffers “with a huge fortune”.

Shares in Turkey’s Zorlu Energy <ZOREN.IS>, which has activities in Israel, rose 11 percent on news of the agreement. Israeli energy stocks also rose in Tel Aviv.

Yildirim was more cautious.

“Firstly let normalization begin and, after that, the level to which we cooperate on whatever subject will be tied to the efforts of the two countries,” he said. “There is no point in talking about these details now.”

Israel, which had already offered its apologies for the 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara activist ship – one of Ankara’s three conditions for a deal – agreed to pay out $20 million to the bereaved and injured. The deal requires Turkey pass legislation protecting Israeli soldiers against related lawsuits.

A senior Turkish official described the agreement as a “diplomatic victory”, even though Israel pledged to maintain the Gaza blockade it says is needed to curb arms smuggling by Hamas, an Islamist group that last fought a war with Israel in 2014.

“Israel comes out on top here,” said Louis Fishman, assistant professor of history at Brooklyn College in New York, who specializes in Turkish and Israeli affairs.

“From the start it believed that a deal could be worked out where Turkish aid was able to enter the Gaza Strip under Israeli supervision. It seems this is what was struck.”

(Additional reporting by Warren Strobel in Rome, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Kremlin says Turkey apologized to Putin over plane incident

Russia's President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a meeting with the United Russia party members in Moscow, Russia, June 27, 2016.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has written to Russian leader Vladimir Putin to apologize over the shooting down of a Russian air force jet by Turkey’s military, the Kremlin said on Monday.

After the Russian jet was shot down in November last year near the Syrian-Turkish border, Russia imposed trade restrictions on Ankara. Putin had said they would not be lifted unless Erdogan apologized over the incident.

There was no immediate comment from Ankara.

In a statement, the Kremlin said Putin had received a letter from Erdogan “in which the Turkish leader expressed his desire to resolve the situation connected to the downing of a Russian military aircraft.”

“The letter states, in particular, that Russia is a friend to Turkey and a strategic partner, with which the Turkish authorities would not wish to spoil relations,” the Kremlin statement said.

It cited Erdogan as saying in the letter: “I want to once again express my sympathy and deep condolences to the family of the Russian pilot who died and I say: ‘I’m sorry.'”

The Turkish lira firmed to 2.9330 against the U.S. dollar from 2.9430 beforehand after the Kremlin said Erdogan had expressed his regret.

(Reporting by Jack Stubbs; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov)

Hezbollah to send more fighters to Syria’s Aleppo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said on Friday it will send more fighters to Syria’s Aleppo area, a battleground where it has suffered heavy losses fighting alongside Syrian government forces against insurgent groups.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said thousands of Hezbollah’s Sunni militant foes had recently entered Syria via the Turkish border with the aim of taking over Aleppo and its surrounding countryside.

“We are facing a new wave…of projects of war against Syria which are being waged in northern Syria, particularly in the Aleppo region,” Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast live on the group’s Al Manar TV.

“The defense of Aleppo is the defense of the rest of Syria, it is the defense of Damascus, it is also the defense of Lebanon, and of Iraq,” he said.

“We will increase our presence in Aleppo,” he said. “Retreat is not permissible.”

Shi’ite, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has long supported President Bashar al-Assad against mostly Sunni insurgents.

Aleppo has been a focus of intensified fighting in the months since peace talks in Geneva broke down and a ceasefire deal brokered by Washington and Moscow unraveled. Russia intervened in the five-year-old conflict in September with an air campaign to support Assad.

“It was necessary for us to be in Aleppo … and we will stay in Aleppo,” Nasrallah said.

Aleppo city is split between government and rebel control. Russian and Syrian warplanes have pounded a road leading from the rebel-held areas north towards the Turkish border. That major rebel supply line from Turkey to Aleppo city was effectively cut by government advances earlier this year.

A pro-Damascus source recently told Reuters government forces and their allies are trying to encircle rebels in the Aleppo area. Assad, for whom the recapture of Aleppo would be a strategic prize, has vowed to take back “every inch” of Syria from what he calls terrorists.

Russia’s intervention has helped government forces and their allies advance against insurgents, and separately against Islamic State, in some areas.

But some of those battles have been costly, including around Aleppo.

Islamist insurgents including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in May inflicted heavy losses on a coalition of foreign Shi’ite fighters including Iranians and Hezbollah members south of Aleppo.

Nasrallah said that 26 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in June alone, a rare acknowledgment of the toll their involvement is taking. Several of its senior military commanders have died in the Syrian conflict, alongside hundreds of fighters.

Nasrallah also denied Hezbollah was in imminent fiscal trouble as a result of a U.S. law targeting the group’s finances. The law, passed in December, threatens to bar from the American financial market any bank that knowingly engages with Hezbollah. It has ignited a standoff between Hezbollah, a dominant political force in Lebanon, and the Lebanese central bank.

(The story is refiled to change city to area in lead)

(Reporting by John Davison and Laila Bassam; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S.-backed Syrian forces clash with Islamic State militants inside Manbij: monitor

AMMAN (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Syrian forces fought Islamic State militants on Thursday inside the city of Manbij for the first time since they laid siege to the militant stronghold near the Turkish border, a monitor said.

The British-based Observatory for Human Rights said heavy clashes were taking place in western districts of Manbij after the alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters swept into the city near the Kutab roundabout, almost 2km from the city center.

The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), including a Kurdish militia and Arab allies that joined it last year, launched the campaign late last month with the backing of U.S. special forces to drive Islamic State from its last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish frontier.

If successful it could cut the militants’ main access route to the outside world, paving the way for an assault on their Syrian capital Raqqa.

Manbij is in a region some 40 km (25 miles) from the Turkish border and since the start of the offensive on May 31, the SDF has taken dozens of villages and farms around it but had held back from entering the city with many thousands of people still trapped there.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Alison Williams)

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