Türkiye and its militia allies are reportedly building up their forces near the Syrian border. This advancement of war is speculated to be a preparation for a large-scale incursion into Kurdish-held territories, RT reported citing the Wall Street Journal on Monday, citing senior US officials.

According to the WSJ’s sources, the forces include militia fighters and Turkish commandos, as well as large amounts of artillery. The buildup is reportedly taking place near Kobani, which is a Kurdish-majority city in Syria on the northern border with Türkiye.

One member of the United States ruling class told the WSJ according to a report by RT, that Washington is now focused on pressing Ankara to hold off on the cross-border operation.

Ilham Ahmed, an official in the civilian administration of the Syrian Kurds, has reportedly sent a letter to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, asking him to convince Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to deploy his troops. “From across the border, we can already see Turkish forces amassing, and our civilians live under the constant fear of imminent death and destruction,” Ahmed wrote in the letter seen by the WSJ.

This amassment of troops could push this already tense situation into much more dire territory. The official raised concerns that the Turkish operation could be imminent and warned that Ankara’s goal appears to be to “establish de facto control” over Kurdish territories before Trump takes office in January.

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Last week, the US-backed, Kurdish-based Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reported that it had already come under Turkish artillery and drone attacks. Additionally, Ahmed claims that this could force Trump to engage with Türkiye as “rulers of our territory” and would have “catastrophic” consequences.

While it’s tough to say what those catastrophic consequences could be, it looks almost certain that war is going to expand further, threatening a third world war.

Following the fall of former President Bashar Assad’s government to opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) jihadists, virtually the entire western part of Syria has come under the control of the armed opposition, many of whom are supported by Türkiye.