Turkey ramps up fight against Kurdish fighters in Syria

BEIRUT -- Turkey escalated its offensive Thursday against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, pounding them with airstrikes and artillery and complicating the battle against the Islamic State group by Ankara and Washington, both NATO allies.

In the fight for Aleppo, meanwhile, the Syrian military used a lull in violence to urge residents and rebels to evacuate the besieged opposition-held part of the city.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency said the Turkish bombing and shelling killed as many as 200 members of the Kurdish-led forces in Syria's Aleppo province.

A senior commander with the main Syria Kurdish militia confirmed the Turkish attack on his forces north of Aleppo but disputed the casualty toll, saying no more than 10 fighters were killed.

Like in Iraq, where Kurdish fighters are at the forefront of the offensive to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State group, Kurdish forces in Syria also have been battling IS militants and made significant territorial gains in Aleppo province.

That has dismayed Turkey, which is dealing with a homegrown Kurdish insurgency and trying to prevent an expansion of Kurdish influence in Syria.

"We will not back down," senior Kurdish commander Mahmoud Barkhadan of the People's Protection Units said by telephone from the region.

"We are fighting Daesh. Why are they striking at us?" he asked, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Barkhadan accused Turkey of aiding IS militants by turning the fight into a Turkish-Kurdish battle.

Turkish artillery also hit near Afrin, a Kurdish enclave in northwestern Syria, he said, adding his forces have not retreated, but Turkey's actions allowed IS fighters to wage a counteroffensive.