{"id":466,"date":"2017-02-22T13:34:47","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T13:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/?p=466"},"modified":"2017-02-22T13:34:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T13:34:47","slug":"kurds-pledge-to-fight-turkey-to-retain-syrias-manbij","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2017\/02\/22\/kurds-pledge-to-fight-turkey-to-retain-syrias-manbij\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurds pledge to fight Turkey to retain Syria’s Manbij"},"content":{"rendered":"

(AL JAZEERA):\u00a0<\/strong>The commander of Kurdish fighters in Syria’s Manbij city has told Al Jazeera that his forces will fight to defend any move by Turkey to take over the area. Adnan Abu Amjad’s comment came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that when his country’s forces finished helping Syrian opposition fighters take over Al Bab from ISIL , they would move on to Manbij and then ISIL’s self-declared capital Raqqa. Erdogan said he wants to set up a safe zone near the Turkish border and clear all Kurdish forces from the area.<\/p>\n

Abu Amjad said: “If Erdogan wants to come to Manbij, it’s his business, but we will defend our city with all the strength we can find. As Syrian people, we’ll resist any interference in our internal affairs.” Air strikes carried out by the US-led coalition and a long fight by mainly Kurdish ground forces freed Manbij from the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group last year.<\/p>\n

However, the US backing for Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) – an alliance dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia – has caused anger in Turkey.<\/p>\n

Since Donald Trump became the US president, Erdogan has offered to join the fight against ISIL, also known as ISIS, in Raqqa. But he does not want Kurds ,\u00a0who had launched a campaign to encircle the city in November, to participate.<\/p>\n

It is not yet clear whether Trump’s administration will provide weapons to the YPG over Turkey’s objections.\u00a0The US says weapons provided to the SDF are so far limited to its Arab elements, but Turkey says the arms are going to the SDF and is asking for a halt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(AL JAZEERA):\u00a0The commander of Kurdish fighters in Syria’s Manbij city has told Al Jazeera that his forces will fight to defend any move by Turkey to take over the area. Adnan Abu Amjad’s comment came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that when his country’s forces finished helping Syrian opposition fighters take over Al Bab from ISIL , they… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[69,61,68,4,70,59],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-erdogan","tag-kurdistan","tag-kurds","tag-syria","tag-syrian-civil-war","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}