Turkey will clear the Tal Rifaat and Manbij areas of terrorists in a new operation in northern Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, naming specific targets in a cross-border operation for the first time. 

"We are going into a new phase of our determination to form a 30-kilometer (20-mile) deep safe zone along our southern border. We will cleanse Tal Rifaat and Manbij of terrorists and we will do the same to other regions step by step," the president told the lawmakers of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). 

Though the president has mentioned Ankara’s plans to form a safe zone alongside the Syrian border before, this is the first time he has explicitly included Manbij and Tal Rifaat in Turkey’s new operation and openly stated Ankara’s intention to expand to other regions.  

“Of the two, Tal Rifaat is the lower-hanging fruit because it would create less Western reaction. But Manbij is densely populated and while there is no US presence there, it retains nominal US protection,” Nigar Goksel, Turkey director of the International Crisis Group, told Al-Monitor.