1ST LEAD Turkey pounds Syrian targets as US rebukes Ankara on attacking Kurds By Shabtai Gold, dpa

Istanbul (dpa) - Turkish forces continued to pound targets in northern Syria, the private Dogan news agency reported on Tuesday, amid a sharp rebuke from the United States over Ankara‘s actions against Kurdish fighters and a prodding to refocus on Islamic State.More than 108 strikes were made against 21 targets in the area, the agency reported.The US is increasingly concerned that its NATO ally Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish forces organized by Washington under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) umbrella are clashing in northern Syria after the Turkish invasion last week."We have called on both sides to not fight with one another, to continue to focus the fight on ISIL. That is the basis for our cooperation with both of them," US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said, using an acronym for Islamic State extremist group."We have called on Turkey to stay focused on the fight against ISIL and not to engage Syrian defence forces," he added.Carter and White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes both said the Syrian Kurds must withdraw to the east of the Euphrates River.If the Kurds cannot stay west of the river, they will not be able to link up with an enclave they control in the far north-western corner of Syria and create an autonomous region. Rebels and Turkey oppose such a Kurdish entity."We do not support and we would oppose efforts to move south and engage in activities against Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF opposition that we have supported," Rhodes said about Turkey, warning it could "complicate efforts to have united front against ISIL.""At same time, we communicated to SDF that they should not be engaged in military activity against Turkish forces and they have a commitment to retrograde east of Euphrates river as well," he said.Still, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation was "in cooperation with the international coalition" which is led by the US, and vowed the offensive in northern Syria would continue until the threat from Islamic State and the Kurds was stopped.Turkey is wary of the Syrian Kurds as they have links to Kurdish insurgents fighting on is own soil. Kurds are a minority in both countries and complain of systemic discrimination.The US official made clear they support Turkish efforts to clear Islamic State from the Turkish-Syrian border.Turkey initially cleared Jarabulus of Islamic State, the last main town the extremists held on the border after the others were taken by the Kurds. Ankara then shifted the focus to the SDF.Syrian Kurds are staunchly opposed to what they see as a Turkish "occupation" and spokesman Shervan Darwish told dpa that they view the rebels Turkey has sent in as "Islamic extremists." He charged that Turkey was displacing local populations in the Minbij area."The goal of the Turkish state is to annihilate the region‘s population and replace them with Islamic extremists," spokesman Darwish of the Minbij Military Council said.The Wall Street Journal reported that the Turkish offensive in Syria, which involved Ankara shipping in hundreds of Syrian rebels from the west of the country to the central area along its border, was not fully coordinated with Washington.A clampdown by the Turks on the so-called "jihadi highway" into Syria, combined with the Syrian Kurds‘ gains in the north, including seizing this month the strategic city Minbij, west of the Euphrates, has helped to drastically reduce the flow of foreign fighters to Syria.Erdogan and US President Barack Obama are set to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in China on the weekend.