TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed authority over northern Syria and Iraq yesterday as his proxy forces clashed with Kurdish militia.

Mr Erdogan aserted that the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia and the Islamic State (Isis) terrorists they are fighting “are just pawns serving the same purpose and same master” and vowed to drive the Kurds from Manbij, the Syrian town they liberated this summer after months of hard fighting.

Turning to the ongoing liberation of Iraq’s second city Mosul, Mr Erdogan vowed: “We’ll take part in Mosul just like we do in Syria now.”

He also said Russian President Vladimir Putin had asked Turkey to help drive al-Qaida terrorists out of east Aleppo — in line with a UN security council statement proposed by Russia on Tuesday.

The insurgents continued to shell government-held west Aleppo yesterday — despite a two-day “humanitarian pause” — killing three people.

The Russian military’s ceasefire-monitoring centre in Syria accused the US-led coalition of killing six civilians when its planes bombed the village of Hassajek, north of Aleppo, hours after the YPG had taken the town from Isis.

The centre said it had spotted two Belgian jets over the area at the time, adding that Russian and Syrian warplanes had not been flying there. Belgium’s Defence Minister denied his jets had hit the area.

Meanwhile, the YPG reportedly advanced east of Hassajek, seizing four more villages from Isis on the way to al-Bab, the next target of Turkey’s “Operation Euphrates Shield” invasion of northern Syria.

On Tuesday, Turkish-supported Free Syrian Army insurgents released a video warning the YPG to withdraw within 48 hours from a salient of territory it took west of the Afrin canton earlier this year.Yesterday there were already reports of clashes between the two forces north of Hassajek.

The US plan for Mosul involves Iraqi troops attacking from the south and east, the Turkish-trained Nineveh Guard coming from the north, and an escape route for the Salafists to the west into Syria.

The official Sana news agency said 10 buses and 12 cars carrying Isis members and their families from Mosul had arrived in the Syrian city of Raqqa without opposition from coalition air forces.