As if the murky constellation of conflicts in Syria were not tangled enough, Turkey seems poised to muddy the waters further by escalating its battle against the Syrian Kurdish-led force that is helping the United States defeat the Islamic State.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for some time now been vowing to capture Manbij, a Syrian Arab town that was liberated from IS by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with the help of coalition air power last year. “After the liberation of al-Bab from Daesh terrorists, Turkey’s new target in Syria is Manbij,” Erdogan told reporters March 1, using the Arabic acronym for the jihadi group.