Wall Street Journal
AYLA ALBAYRAK | DANA BALLOUT
The U.S. and Turkey are stepping up their campaign to choke off Islamic State’s main route out of Syria by deploying advanced rockets and more Turkish forces to the Syrian border, U.S. and Turkish officials said .
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the U.S. plans to send the rockets to the Turkey-Syria border. The rocket system will be operated by U.S. forces and it is expected to be incorporated into the Turkish military’s border operations, officials said.
Islamic State and other extremists have used the 60-mile stretch of the Turkey-Syria border to transport weapons, supplies and fighters between Turkey and Syrian strongholds, as well as to send militants to carry out attacks in Europe, according to officials.
In an interview with the Haberturk newspaper, Mr. Cavusoglu said Syria’s moderate rebels were needed to wipe out the threat from Islamic State along the border.
Turkey’s disclosure on Tuesday of the planned transfer of the rockets came a day after the cabinet of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu approved plans to send more Turkish troops and surveillance drones to the border.
Both moves are part of an accelerated, U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State announced Monday by President Barack Obama that includes plans to send up to 250 more U.S. military personnel into Syria to work with rebel forces.
The U.S. has been pressing Turkey for months to help close off Islamic State supply routes out of Syria, but the two countries have been at odds over how to carry out the plans, which require military operations on both sides of the border.
The U.S. has relied on Kurdish forces to drive Islamic State away from much of the Turkey-Syria border, but Ankara refused to allow Kurdish fighters, which it views as terrorists, to lead the charge for this disputed territory.
Aaron Stein, a Syria specialist at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said the effort has been partly hampered by friction among rebels, and conflicting views between Turkey and the U.S. over which groups should participate.
“The Arab and Turkmen opposition elements are fragmented and poorly organized, despite Turkey’s best efforts to form a unified command,” Mr. Stein said.
U.S. and Turkish officials discussed deployment of the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System or Himars, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Washington recently for talks on the anti-Islamic State campaign, according to U.S. officials. After the talks in Washington, Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Obama agreed on a new plan to work closely with Turkish-backed fighters along the border.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter E. Gersten, Deputy Commander for Operations and Intelligence for the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State, said on Tuesday that a Himars system would be placed in Turkey. A system holds multiple rockets.
“The Himars is simply one of many systems that the coalition is bringing to fight this enemy,” Gen. Gersten said. “We have fighters, we have remotely piloted aircraft, we have cyber and now we have Himars. We will bring everything to bear against this enemy wherever it presents itself.”
Syrian rebels have said they need more weapons and fighters to drive Islamic State from the border area.
Though supported by U.S. airstrikes and Turkish artillery fire in the past two weeks, the rebels have struggled to gain the advantage in the fighting.
“We’re suffering from a lack of fighters in northern Aleppo,” Col. Ahmad Othman, a leader of one of the Western-backed rebel groups involved in the fight, said Monday. “Since we’re basically under siege in these areas, when a fighter dies or is wounded we can’t replace him.”
Islamic State has responded to the stepped-up fighting in the area by attacking Syrian camps on the Turkish border and firing rockets and mortars into Kilis, a Turkish town near the border. In all, 17 people have been killed in the town by Islamic State rocket and mortar fire since mid-January, nine people in the past week alone.
Islamic State fighters are also embroiled in daily clashes with Western-backed fighters for control of the strategic towns between the Turkish border and Aleppo.
Inside Syria, Mr. Othman said Turkish artillery fire and airstrikes by the U.S.-led, anti-Islamic State coalition alone wouldn’t be enough to turn the tide against Islamic State, also known by the Arabic acronym Daesh.
Mr. Othman said 300 fighters have been killed or wounded over the past three months, seriously depleting his fighting force. The group last received weapons and ammunition from its Western allies two weeks ago, he said.
“Over the past two weeks, we have been going back and forth with Daesh over territories,” he said. “They gain some, we take it back, and vice versa.”
Islamic State strikes on Kilis, where Syrian refugees now comprise 60% of the population, have created a crisis for Turkey.
Turkish officials have urged residents of the town to stay inside as they send more forces to the area to try to stop the attacks.
“Children are terrified because children have also died,” said Nejla Al-Sheh, director of a social center in Kilis that provides psychological support for traumatized Syrian families.
U.S. and Turkish officials expect the attacks on Kilis to escalate as they press the fight to drive Islamic State away from the border.
