Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed not to allow any Islamic State fighters to escape northern Syria, in an editorial published yesterday, following fears from Western nations over its offensive in the region.

"We will ensure that no ISIS (Islamic State) fighters leave northeastern Syria," Erdogan wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

But he added that Western countries were hypocritical to worry that Turkey's operation against Kurdish militants risked a mass escape of jihadists.

"The same countries that lecture Turkey on the virtues of combating ISIS today, failed to stem the influx of foreign terrorist fighters in 2014 and 2015," Erdogan wrote.

The United States slapped sanctions on Turkey Monday as it demanded an end to the military operation, accusing its NATO partner of putting civilians at risk and allowing the release of extremists.

Kurdish authorities claim the Turkish assault makes it difficult to maintain security at their detention centres.

They say 800 IS family members escaped a camp at Ain Issa on Sunday, and five jihadists broke out of another prison on Friday.

Turkey says Kurdish forces have deliberately set free detainees "to fuel chaos in the area". Some relatives of IS family members have made the same claim to AFP. Ankara has vowed to take control of all detention centres in its operational area.

"We are prepared to cooperate with source countries and international organizations on the rehabilitation of foreign terrorist fighters' spouses and children," Erdogan wrote in the Wall Street Journal editorial.

Another report from Paris adds: At least three French women who were being held in a Syrian Kurdish-run camp for jihadists’ families have fallen into the hands of the Islamic State (IS) group, according to messages they sent to their lawyer, seen by AFP yesterday.

Several French women who had travelled to Syria to join IS and were captured when the extremists suffered military deafeat left a camp for the displaced in northeast Syria at the weekend, at the start of a Turkish offensive against their Kurdish captors.

The Kurdish administration in northern Syria claimed that Turkish bombardments near the camp in the northern town of Ain Issa led to 785 relatives of IS members fleeing.

Turkey claimed that Kurdish forces deliberately set them free.

In a message sent to a relative, which was seen by AFP, one of the women said they had been “retrieved” by IS.

“We have just realised that it is the State (IS) that has retrieved us,” she wrote.