Reuters journalists at the border heard machine-gun fire and shelling and saw smoke rising from the Syrian border battlefield city of Ras al Ain early on Friday, although the sounds of fighting later subsided by mid-morning. The truce, announced on Thursday by US Vice President Mike Pence after talks in Ankara with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, sets out a five-day pause to let the Kurdish-led SDF militia withdraw from an area controlled by Turkish forces. But the US special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said the agreement fell short of that aim, covering only an area where Turkish forces were already operating. The Turkish assault began after Trump moved US troops out of the way following an October 6 phone call with Erdogan. A Turkish official told Reuters that Ankara got "exactly what we wanted" from the talks with the United States.

Source: Dhaka Tribune October 18, 2019 06:42 UTC