Turkish troops and tanks entered Syria on Sunday to push an offensive against Kurdish militia as France warned over the risks of the operation and rockets hit border towns in apparent retaliation. Turkey on Saturday launched operation "Olive Branch" seeking to oust from the Afrin region of northern Syria the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) which Ankara considers a terror group.
But the campaign risks further increasing tensions with Turkey's Nato ally the United States - which has supported the YPG in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists - and also needs at least the tacit support of Russia to succeed. France's defence minister said it risked harming the campaign to crush IS, as Paris called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss the fighting.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said troops crossed into YPG-controlled region in Syria at 0805 GMT, the Dogan news agency reported. Thirty-two Turkish planes destroyed a total of 45 targets including ammunition dumps and refuges used by the YPG on the second day of the operation, the Turkish army said.
Turkish troops were advancing alongside forces from the Ankara-backed rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and were already five kilometres (three miles) inside Syria, state media said.
An AFP photographer saw Turkish tanks lined up at the border waiting to cross into Syrian territory. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in televised comments several villages had already been taken in the advance. But a YPG spokesman claimed Turkish forces seeking to enter Afrin had been "blocked" and that it had hit two Turkish tanks.
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