Syria Kurds deny Turkey has taken battleground border town

BEIRUT: Kurdish forces in northeastern  Syria  denied on Saturday claims by the Turkish defence ministry that its forces had taken the battleground border town of Ras al-Ain, the first in its four-day-old offensive.
“Ras al-Ain is still resisting and clashes are ongoing,” said an official of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
The official said Kurdish fighters had temporarily pulled back from the town before launching a counter-offensive against Ankara’s forces.  An AFP correspondent in the area said Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels had entered the town but had yet to capture it.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights too reported that Ras al-Ain, a major target of the Turkish offensive, had yet to be overrun.
A Syrian rebel commander fighting alongside Turkish forces said they seized a neighbourhood in Ras al-Ain and sealed the main routes leading to the area but SDF defences were impeding further advances.