Turkish warplanes bomb US-backed Kurdish militias in Syria

Turkish warplanes carried out more than 20 sorties early Thursday morning in northern Syria, attacking positions, vehicles and convoys of US-backed Kurdish militias fighting the Islamic State organization. The targets were in a number of villages around the city of Aleppo. There were conflicting reports on the number of casualties, with the Turkish army reporting that 200 Kurdish fighters had been killed while the militias claimed that there were only about 20 fatalities. DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report that the Turkish attack may cause the Kurds to withdraw their forces from the US-led offensive to capture the Iraqi city of Mosul, and not help the US capture the Syrian city of Raqqa afterwards.