straight to turkey that day w correspondent dorian jones joins us from istanbul welcome dorian as a tell us more about the turkish military operation. well there has been this ongoing bombardment from the air within hours of the announcement of the operation jets have been relentlessly pounding towns across the syrian border here at least 4 possibly 5 towns have been struck took issue tillery 2 have been bombarding the area along with mortar fire there have been some reports that the syrian kurdish forces have retaliated using small fire and mortars attacking nearby turkish border towns and this is just the very beginning of what is seen the turkish forces are laying the ground for a major ground offensive possibly they can start at night in the early hours of the morning part of a very major operation that turkey has been planning for many months i what are you hearing from northern syria. well it's very difficult to get a real report from what's happening but we do understand that from statements released by the syrian kurdish forces if the scribed major panic in town centers with the

correspondent dorian jones is standing by in istanbul good evening to you dorian what kind of operation are we looking at here dorian we just saw in that tweet from rich a thai air to one the goal here is to neutralize terrorist threats but is he talking about the terrorists being the kurds or is he talking about the terrorists being the isis prisoners that are in the area. speak to touch officials they'll say it's both but let's be clear the primary objective of this operation is to drive back the syrian kurdish militia that has been on turkey's border for several years has said that this group is a terrorist organization linked to a kurdish insurgency site turkey and they say that they have been committed to removing this threat from it and it will point to the fact that it has getting support from the international community saying that they are respecting turkey's right to protect its borders now this operation is going to be a major operation this is been in the planning for months turkey plans to create a 30 kilometer deep. safe zone as president calls it and it's going to be seve