Syria Strengthens Manbiy Before Announced Turkish Military Operation
The Syrian Army has sent a large military convoy south of Manbiy while Turkey is preparing to launch an offensive against the Kurdish-Syrians in the city.
Hundreds of soldiers and dozens of tanks and armored vehicles are already deployed in the village of Tal Aswad, prepared to face the announced offensive of the Turkish Army in Manbiy (north), said a Syrian military on Saturday at the local news portal, Al Masdar News .
There are local sources that also report the deployment south of Manbiy of a new US convoy, composed, among other elements, by about 18 armored vehicles, in reaction to the arrival of reinforcements from Damascus.
The US military deployment occurs, however, after the Administration of US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday the beginning of the total withdrawal of his troops from the Arab country.
According to local sources, the commanders of the Syrian Army have maintained several meetings with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Washington’s main ally in Syrian territory, to enter the areas they control.
Yeihan Ahmad, a spokesman of the SDS, has assured that the Kurdish-Syrian forces, in alert before the announced Turkish military operation, do not oppose to raise the Syrian national flag in the governmental centers, among other buildings.
The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has reported that his army will launch “shortly” a military operation in Syria to eliminate the Kurdish fighters who control the eastern bank of the Euphrates river, which it considers “terrorists” as well as ISIL (Daesh, in Arabic).
As for Damascus, it considers illegal the presence of foreign forces operating without their authorization in its territory, and assures that the end of the Syrian armed conflict will come when foreign interventions cease.
ask / mla / mnz / mkh
Translated by JRE / AR
