Brussels Attacks Fuel Push to Close Off Militants’ Highway
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The Brussels bombings have accelerated U.S. efforts to close off the last remaining Islamic State route out of Syria through Turkey, which officials suspect was the main thoroughfare for militants who carried out deadly attacks in Belgium and France.
On Wednesday, top U.S. diplomats pressed Turkey to embrace a proposal to rely on American-backed Kurdish fighters to shut down the highway, which the militant group has used to send dozens of attackers across Europe.
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s attack, Western officials expressed increasing alarm about the continued flow of Islamic State extremists across this 60-mile stretch of the Turkey-Syria border.
But Turkey has long opposed working with the Kurdish forces it considers terrorists. That, along with its renewed push for the creation of a safe zone in Syria, has so far kept the two sides apart on any agreement. Islamic State has been able to capitalize on the impasse to keep sending fighters in-and-out of Syria, U.S. officials said.