Fact Check: Did Türkiye Fight DAESH, or Only Kurdish Groups? What the Euphrates Shield Record Shows

Why It Matters

Short answer: the claim that Türkiye fought “only Kurdish groups” is not supported by the record, but the surrounding debate is not closed. Operation Euphrates Shield (24 August 2016 to 29 March 2017) was a ground campaign against DAESH (the Arabic acronym for ISIS/ISIL) in northern Syria, and Türkiye itself suffered a series of DAESH attacks between 2015 and 2017. At the same time, serious questions about Türkiye's border management in 2013–2015 and about the role of the YPG/SDF against DAESH remain disputed between Ankara and many Western governments, analysts and media outlets.

This page states the claim, tests it against primary and widely documented sources, and separates what is established from what is contested. Official Turkish figures are attributed to Turkish institutions and flagged as official figures. For our sourcing method, see Editorial Principles and Primary-Source Standards.

VERDICT BOX

Claim: “Ankara ignored or tolerated DAESH while its military targeted only the YPG/SDF and other Kurdish groups.”

Primary sources: Turkish Ministry of National Defence (MoND) operation briefings; Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) statements on DAESH; Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye and Directorate of Communications statements; TBMM motion of 2 October 2014; UN Security Council Resolutions 2170 (2014), 2178 (2014) and 2249 (2015); the public record of the DAESH attacks in Türkiye.

Verified correction: Türkiye conducted a major ground and air campaign against DAESH in Operation Euphrates Shield, lists DAESH as a terrorist organization, is a member of the Global Coalition against DAESH, and was itself a repeated target of DAESH bombings. The blanket claim that it fought “only Kurds” is false.

What remains disputed: (1) how permissive the Turkish border was for foreign fighters, oil and supplies in 2013–2015; (2) whether Euphrates Shield was equally aimed at preventing YPG territorial linkage; (3) the SDF's role against DAESH versus Ankara's position that the YPG is the Syrian branch of the PKK/KCK; (4) the independently unverified scale of official Turkish figures.

Claim vs. Fact Analysis

Claim 1: “Türkiye never really fought DAESH; its Syria operations were about Kurds.”

Where it comes from: The claim is common in commentary after the 2014 siege of Kobani, when Ankara declined to intervene directly, and again after Operations Olive Branch (2018) and Peace Spring (2019), which targeted areas held by the PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG rather than DAESH.

What the record shows:

• Operation Euphrates Shield began on 24 August 2016 with the capture of Jarablus, a border town DAESH had held. Turkish forces and Syrian opposition units then took Dabiq (16 October 2016), a town of high symbolic value to DAESH, and al-Bab (23 February 2017), a major urban stronghold. The operation was declared complete on 29 March 2017.
• Türkiye's official figures: According to Turkish official statements by the MFA, MoND and Presidency, more than 4,000 DAESH terrorists were neutralized in northern Syria, and 100,000 DAESH-linked individuals were prevented from entering Türkiye. In Turkish official usage, “neutralized” generally covers killed, captured or wounded, and the figures have not been independently audited. Readers should treat them as official claims, not third-party counts.
• Attacks suffered by Türkiye: Turkish authorities attributed a string of mass-casualty attacks to DAESH, including the Suruç bombing (20 July 2015), the Ankara railway station bombing (10 October 2015, over 100 killed), the Istanbul Sultanahmet bombing (January 2016), the Istanbul Atatürk Airport attack (28 June 2016), the Gaziantep wedding bombing (20 August 2016, four days before Euphrates Shield began) and the Reina nightclub shooting (1 January 2017). These attacks are a matter of public record and sit awkwardly with a theory of alignment between Ankara and DAESH.
• Legal and institutional record: The TBMM authorized cross-border military action on 2 October 2014. Türkiye opened Incirlik Air Base to coalition aircraft in July 2015. UN Security Council Resolution 2178 (2014) obliged states to criminalize foreign terrorist fighter travel, and Resolution 2249 (2015) called on states to take all necessary measures against DAESH in Syria and Iraq.

Fair reading: Critics are right that Türkiye's anti-DAESH campaign came late relative to the group's 2014 expansion, and that the 2016 operation had a second declared purpose, discussed under Claim 3. But “late” and “dual-purpose” are different findings from “never fought DAESH.”

Claim 2: “Türkiye's border was an open door for DAESH in 2013–2015.”

Where it comes from: UN monitoring reports and independent studies identified Türkiye as the most accessible transit route for foreign fighters entering Syria, simply because of geography. In October 2014, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said at Harvard that allies, including Türkiye, had let weapons and fighters flow to extremist groups, and he later apologized for the remark. After Türkiye shot down a Russian Su-24 on 24 November 2015, Russian officials alleged that Turkish figures profited from DAESH oil smuggling. U.S. Treasury officials had separately described DAESH oil smuggling networks across the region in 2014.

What can be documented:

• Many foreign fighters did transit Türkiye. That is not seriously disputed, and the same pattern is documented in studies of the wider region.
• The Kobani episode is real: Ankara declined to launch a ground intervention in September–October 2014, then facilitated the passage of Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga reinforcements through its territory in late October 2014. Protests over Kobani inside Türkiye led to deadly unrest in October 2014.

What is not established:

• No court or UN body has found that the Turkish state deliberately supported DAESH. The Russian oil allegations were denied by President Erdoğan, who said he would resign if they were proven, and they were not substantiated in a public independent investigation.

Ankara's reply: Turkish officials argue that Türkiye has a long border with a collapsing Syria, that most foreign fighters travelled legally on visa-free or ordinary tourist routes, and that origin states shared watch-list intelligence too late or not at all. Ankara points to its entry-ban and deportation system, reflected in its figure of 100,000 DAESH-linked individuals prevented from entering. Critics reply that border enforcement tightened substantially only from 2015, and that the ban lists and the deportation numbers are not independently verified.

Verdict on this sub-claim: Contested. The permissive-transit finding is supported by independent evidence; the intentional-tolerance finding is not.

Claim 3: “The YPG/SDF was the real anti-DAESH force, so Türkiye's operations helped DAESH.”

Where it comes from: The SDF, supported by coalition air power and advisers, fought DAESH at Kobani (finally cleared in January 2015), took Raqqa (October 2017) and cleared DAESH's last territorial enclave at Baghuz (March 2019). The U.S. Department of Defense and several European governments have publicly acknowledged the SDF's role as a counter-DAESH partner.

Ankara's reply, attributed to Turkish official sources:

• The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, NATO and the European Union. The Turkish Presidency and MFA state that the PYD/YPG, and its SDF branding, are the Syrian branch of the PKK/KCK, sharing leadership, ideology, cadres and weapons. Ankara argues that the group used the fight against DAESH to gain international legitimacy and to carve out a corridor along Türkiye's southern border.
• Euphrates Shield, Ankara says, served both goals: removing DAESH from the border strip and preventing the separate YPG-held cantons from linking up west of the Euphrates. Turkish officials openly described the second aim.

What is genuinely disputed:

• The PKK/YPG link. The United States and the European Union list the PKK but do not list the YPG or SDF. U.S. officials have acknowledged organizational links while treating the SDF as a separate operational partner. Ankara regards this distinction as a political convenience; Washington has treated it as a necessary one for the counter-DAESH mission.
• Operations after DAESH's territorial defeat. Operation Olive Branch (2018, Afrin) and Operation Peace Spring (2019, northeastern Syria) were directed at areas held by the PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG, not at DAESH-held territory, and critics, including several coalition governments, argue they diverted SDF forces from anti-DAESH duties. Ankara says they were necessary border-security measures under Article 51 of the UN Charter (see Applying the Article 51 Test: Necessity, Proportionality and Türkiye's Cross-Border Operations).
• Detainee security. The escape of some DAESH detainees from camps in northeastern Syria in October 2019 has been attributed by different parties to different causes; responsibility is contested.

Verdict on this sub-claim: Both sides hold part of the record. The SDF did fight DAESH with coalition support. Türkiye did fight DAESH separately, and its argument about the PKK link is a matter of official Turkish policy that Western capitals have only partly accepted.

Claim 4 (the reverse claim): “Türkiye is the only NATO ally to fight DAESH on the ground.”

This phrase appears in Turkish official messaging. Read carefully, it refers to Türkiye's conventional state-army ground campaign in Euphrates Shield. Other coalition members, including the United States and France, deployed special forces and advisers alongside local partners and contributed extensive air power. The statement is defensible as a description of a conventional ground operation; it should not be read as saying no other ally had personnel on the ground in Syria.

Source Comparison

The method matters here. The same discipline of testing a narrative against primary documents is applied in our sister fact-checks, such as Frontline Diplomacy's analysis of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and Ankara's treaty-based use-of-force reasoning is examined in another theatre in Record of Nations' fact check on the 1974 Cyprus intervention. Readers should compare how each argument is anchored to a legal text.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• DAESH: The Arabic acronym for the group also called ISIS or ISIL. Türkiye uses “DAESH” in official texts.
• Operation Euphrates Shield (2016–2017): Turkish operation in northern Syria, the first of four major Turkish operations there, followed by Olive Branch (2018), Peace Spring (2019) and Spring Shield (2020).
• PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG: The PKK is listed as terrorist by Türkiye, the United States, NATO and the EU. The KCK is its umbrella structure; the PYD and its armed wing YPG are Syria's branch according to Ankara, a characterization contested by the SDF and not reflected in U.S. or EU listings of the YPG.
• SDF: The Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition-backed force led by the YPG.
• Article 51: UN Charter provision recognizing the inherent right of self-defence against armed attack.

Related guides:

• Applying the Article 51 Test: Necessity, Proportionality and Türkiye's Cross-Border Operations
• Is Strategic Autonomy Worth the Cost? A Cost-Benefit Reading of Türkiye's 80% Domestic Defense Industry
• Cold Rationality: Türkiye's Strategic Doctrines Tested Against Law, Archives and Evidence
• Reader FAQ: Sources, Method and Perspective at Cold Rationality
• About Cold Rationality: Mission, Method and Perspective

Cold Rationality publishes analysis from a perspective that presents and defends Türkiye's official positions, and we state this openly so readers can weigh our arguments accordingly. Claims are tied to primary sources wherever possible, including treaties, UN documents, court records, and archival materials, and are linked or cited in each piece. — Cold Rationality Editorial Team