When Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield on Aug. 24, two objectives were declared: to distance the Islamic State (IS) from the Turkish border, and to prevent the Kurds who had crossed to the west of the Euphrates River, despite Turkey’s stated red lines, from connecting with Afrin.
Other goals that were not declared but could be read between the lines were to rescue the armed opposition groups supported by Turkey squeezed in Aleppo, to provide them with a protected zone and to prevent refugees in that zone from crossing into Turkey. Ankara was determined to block the Kurdish advances from east to west both in the south and in the north, then to enter al-Bab and put together an alternative force that might persuade the United States to terminate its partnership with the Kurds for the Raqqa operation.