Turkey hit 59 Daesh targets and killed 51 militants in northern Syria as part of its ongoing incursion, the Turkish military said on Saturday. Turkish forces have surrounded the Daesh-controlled town of Al-Bab for weeks as part of an operation that has been going on for more than five months. Four of those killed were so-called emirs, or local commanders, the Turkish military said, adding that its jets destroyed 56 buildings and three command control centers in the Al-Bab and Bzagah regions. Coalition forces also conducted eight airstrikes in the Al-Bab region, destroying two defense positions and two armed vehicles. The Turkish army also hit 135 Daesh targets in northern Syria, the General Staff said in a statement. Turkey first sent tanks across the border on August 24 as part of the operation Euphrates Shield. Four days later, the Turkish army suffered its first fatality in northern Syria, in a rocket attack blamed on Kurdish militias. The city is in a strategic area, close to the Turkish border in northern Syria en route to Raqqa and Idlib. Al-Bab is one of the few remaining strongholds of Daesh. If it takes Al-Bab, the Turkish military says its next objective is to clear the whole area and retake the town of Manbij from the SDF, a largely Kurdish militia. More than 215 residential areas, including Jarablus city in northern Syria, have been cleared of Daesh as part of the Euphrates Shield operation so far, according to the Turkish military. — Agencies
