Distractions are adding up, such as Turkey’s fighting with U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels in Syria and renewed spillover from Syria’s civil war. Meanwhile, hostilities between noncoalition actors — Iran, its proxies in Syria, and Israel — risk creating a new conflict in an already crowded battlespace. Turkey considers the YPG a “terrorist” group linked to Kurdish insurgents fighting within Turkey’s own borders. If the Kurds feel threatened, the officials said, they will move their forces away from Islamic State fronts, prolonging the fight. The coalition plans to unveil a blueprint for boosting intelligence and information sharing and law enforcement cooperation to halt the flow of those fighters, the officials said.

Source: Egypt Independent February 13, 2018 06:11 UTC