Turkey’s military struck the Syrian-Iraqi border to prevent Kurdish forces using the route to reinforce northeast Syria, as Ankara prepared to attack there following a surprise U.S. troop pullback, Turkish officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

Turkey says it is ready to advance into northeast Syria now that the United States has begun withdrawing troops from the Turkey-Syria frontier in an abrupt policy shift by U.S. President Donald Trump widely criticized in Washington as a betrayal of America’s allies, the Kurds.

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Turkey-backed Syrian rebels pledged on Friday to back a potential cross-border offensive that Ankara has threatened to mount against Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria.

Ankara and Washington have agreed to set up a zone in northeast Syria along the border with Turkey, which wants to expel the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from the frontier.

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For the fourth time this week, the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) unleashed a major assault across the northeastern countryside of the Latakia Governorate, which is mostly under the control of the jihadist rebels.

According to a military source in the Latakia countryside, the Syrian Air Force launched several strikes over the town of Kabani and its surroundings, hitting a number of targets belonging to the Turkestan Islamic Party and Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham.

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Yemeni Houthi rebels have adopted a two-pronged approach to trying to win their war. To promote talks, on Monday they freed 290 prisoners, including survivors of a Saudi air strike on a prison last month.

On Saturday, the Houthis announced they had overwhelmed Saudi forces based near the border with the kingdom, killing or wounding 500, taking 2,000 prisoners, and capturing and destroying US-made armoured vehicles.

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Houthi rebels in Yemen say they have captured a large number of Saudi troops after a major attack near the border between the two countries.

A Houthi spokesman told the BBC that three Saudi brigades had surrendered near the Saudi town of Najran.

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