A Turkish air strike on a Syrian border publish has claimed the lives of almost a dozen folks within the war-torn nation’s Kurdish-majority north.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights mentioned on Tuesday that 11 “fighters” had been killed within the Turkish air strike that hit a Syrian outpost close to the Turkish border, with out specifying whether or not these killed had been affiliated with the Syrian military or US-backed Kurdish militants.
The Britain-based conflict monitor mentioned the airstrike focused the outpost within the village of Jarqali, west of the Kurdish-held border city of Kobani.
The strike adopted an in a single day flare-up between Turkish forces and Kurdish-led militants affiliated with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that management the realm.
Turkey’s protection ministry mentioned the Kurdish forces had intensified their cross border shelling of army positions within the Turkish territory, killing one soldier.
“13 terrorists had been neutralized” in retaliatory assaults by Ankara inside Syria, the ministry added, stressing that the operations had been ongoing within the area.
Syrian media have but to touch upon the Tuesday’s assault close to Kobani. If Syrian authorities forces are confirmed to be amongst these killed, the assault would mark one of many largest escalations since Ankara and Damascus traded assaults in 2020 following a Syrian strike that killed 33 Turkish troopers within the northwestern province of Idlib.
The newest growth comes towards the backdrop of Ankara’s stepped-up threats to launch a large army operation towards Kurdish militants in northern Syria to determine what it calls a “safe line” alongside Turkey’s border with the Arab nation.
Final week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as soon as once more hinted at a plan for a cross-border operation in Syria to take away members of the Kurdish Folks’s Safety Units (YPG) militant group, which is the spine of the SDF.
Turkey has deployed forces in Syria in violation of the Arab nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Ankara-backed militants had been deployed to northeastern Syria in October 2019 after Turkish army forces launched a long-threatened cross-border invasion in a declared try to push YPG fighters away from border areas.
Ankara views the YPG as a terrorist group tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Employees’ Get together (PKK), which has been searching for an autonomous Kurdish area in Turkey since 1984.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and different senior officers have mentioned Damascus will reply by way of all reliable means obtainable to Turkey’s ongoing floor offensive.
