Istanbul, Dec 28: According to highly placed sources with the Turkish army there are reports suggesting that former Syrian refugees are being encouraged to enlist against the ISIS by joining the Turkish army and fighting the mainstream battle.

The suggestion comes at a time when Turkish army is loosing considerable men in their assault across Northern Syria and raising the death toll for the regular army. 
 
An online campaign was launched lately, calling for recruiting Syrian men in Turkey who are aged between 18 to 45 and sending them to the battlefield. As many as 260,000 Turks have signed on the petition within days, which will be sent to the Turkish General Staff for consideration when the figure hits 300,000.
 
Last week, 17 Turkish soldiers were killed in three suicide bomb attacks by the Islamic State (IS) militants in the northern Syrian town of al-Bab, bringing  the total number of Turkish deaths to 37 since Ankara launched what it called Euphrates Shield Operation on August 24 in Syria's north.
 
The military offensive is aiming chiefly at preventing the Syrian Kurds from seizing more land for an autonomous region or worse, an independent state, along the border with Turkey.
 
The Turkish troops and Ankara-backed Syrian rebels are trying now to take al-Bab from the IS, with next targets being Manbij and Raqqa, the de-facto IS capital, as announced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.