Turkey is sending hundreds of commandos to reinforce its military campaign inside Syria, where the Turkish Army has suffered increasing casualties in its fight to capture a key town from ISIS jehadis, reports said on Friday.
A total of 300 commandos from a base in the western Turkish province of Denizli were first taken in buses to a military airport and then to the border region in military planes to join the Turkish-led operation, Turkish newspapers and the Anadolu news agency reported.
Ankara in August launched an operation dubbed Euphrates Shield to back up Syrian rebels seeking to oust jehadis from the border zone. The Syrian towns of Jarabulus, Al Rai and Dabiq were retaken from the IS jihadists in lightning moves in the early weeks of the operation. But the Syrian fighters and Turkish troops have found far greater resistance in the fight for Al Bab — 25 kilometres from the Turkish border —where the jehadis have reportedly regrouped after fleeing an earlier offensive.
Nineteen Turkish soldiers have lost their lives in the Syria campaign so far, with the Government wary of any sign it could become a focus of public concern. The Army has already since summer 2015 been waging an offensive against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in the southeast that has claimed the lives of hundreds of members of the security forces.
Most of the attacks in the Syria campaign have been blamed on the ISIS extemists.
But four Turkish soldiers were killed last month by an airstrike the Turkish army blamed on the Syrian regime. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei lavrov said last week neither Moscow nor its ally Damascus were behind the deadly strike.