Senior U.S. officials say Turkey is building up its forces along the Turkish border with Syria in possible preparation for a large-scale incursion into territory held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds. That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports a Turkish invasion could be imminent near Kobani, a Kurdish-majority city in Syria.

Meanwhile, Syria’s ousted authoritarian president has made his first statement since he fled to Russia to seek political asylum. In a post on the Syrian presidency’s Telegram channel, Bashar al-Assad writes that his departure from Syria was not planned, and argued that Syria has “fallen into the hands of terrorism.”