Turkey's Erdogan promises to clear US-backed Kurds from eastern Syria, prompting warning from Pentagon

BEIRUT - Turkey will launch a military operation against U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria "within a matter of days," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, prompting warnings from the Pentagon and State Department.

Washington backs the Kurds with thousands of service members, special forces and contractors who maintain a presence east of the Euphrates River, while Turkey and its coalition of Syrian rebels have mainly stayed to the west.

Turkey will target the east to "save the area from the separatist terrorist movement," Erdogan said, using his routine