Turkish forces approached a key Kurdish-held town in northern Syria on Sunday, setting off clashes that allowed hundreds of Islamic State supporters to escape from a camp for displaced people and prompted U.S. soldiers to withdraw from a nearby base.
The 249 women and 700 children of the “caliphate” held in a secure annex at the Ain Issa camp began to panic and riot and scared away the guards after Turkish shelling struck close to the area on Sunday, said Abdulkader Mwahed, the joint president for humanitarian affairs in the Kurdish-held part of Syria, in a statement.
Huffington Post quotes a U.S. military official who said that the situation across northeastern Syria was “deteriorating rapidly” and that American forces were cut off from the Syrian Kurdish fighters they had previously partnered with.
The official, who was not authorized to disclose operational details and spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. troops on the ground are at risk of being “isolated” and cannot travel overland without a “high risk” of armed confrontation with Turkey-backed forces.
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