jones is on the story for us a busy day of busy night dorian and so what is happening at the border now this is no longer just an operation of airstrikes is it. yeah that's right in fact to to fish defense ministry statement announced their ground operation had started said turkish forces has started to cross into syria into these towns that have been held by the syrian kurdish militia this follows hours of bombardment by took a shit tillery and supported by a turkish fighter bombers that have been pounding all along the syrian border as far as 3040 kilometers deep into this territory a sustained bombardment and this bunch of much the way it's typical turkish tactics from 2 previous operations of heavy bombardment that paved the way for the land operation which is going expected to be a far more attracted a more difficult leg of the operation given the fact that some of this fight is expected to be in heavily densely populated towns and this will raise the specter of all high and growing numbers of civilian casualties which we already appeared to have occurred already in dorian with

dorian jones on the story for us tonight is tim ball dorian thank you well as we heard the united states said all of this in motion on sunday with president donald trump's shock announcement that u.s. troops are pulling out of northern syria and leaving the kurds to fend for themselves the move was slammed by both democrats and republicans the president kept pushing back until today the white house releasing this statement on the turkish offensive the united states does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to turkey that this operation is a bad idea turkey has committed to protecting civilians protecting religious minorities including christians and ensuring no humanitarian crisis takes place and we will hold them to this commitment. well the assurances of the trump white house don't mean much tonight to the kurds in northern syria the security umbrella provided by u.s. forces has been removed the kurds are now bracing for an assault by the turkish military i spoke tonight with keno gabriele spokesman for the syria democratic forces that's the military arm of the kurds and i ask

are for more now i'm joined by our correspondent dorian jones he's on the story for us tonight is stamboul in turkey good evening to you door you know moscow says that the kurdish forces have left the syrian border area with turkey but we're not hearing much from anyone else from the kurds or from turkey for example why not do we know. well a senior turkish diplomat speaking anonymously is quoted as saying well we have to take the words of the russians the kurdish militia withdrawn but we don't trust them turkey will now be looking to these joint patrols with russia to verify this withdrawal these patrols will go as far as 10 kilometers deep into syria and also in the last hours of the cease fire has been marred by reports of heavy fighting a russian patrol reportedly operating close to the turkish border in syria came under fire from fire reportedly from turkey while there has also been reports of heavy fighting between militias linked to the turkish army fighting against regime forces with reports of casualties the turkish defense ministry saying as many as 18 soldiers from the regime ha