BEIRUT —
Turkish air strikes on a Syria border post run by regime forces killed 11
Tuesday, following an overnight flare-up between Ankara’s forces and Kurdish
fighters that control the area, a war monitor said.
اضافة اعلان
“Eleven fighters
were killed in a Turkish air strike that hit a Syrian regime outpost ... near
the Turkish border,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, without
specifying if the victims were affiliated with the Damascus government or
Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said “Turkish military aircraft have conducted
12 airstrikes against positions of the Syrian army deployed on the border strip
west of Kobane,” a Kurdish-held town.
The raids caused
“casualties”, SDF spokesman Farhad Shami said, without specifying how many.
Syrian regime
forces have deployed in areas controlled by Kurdish fighters near the border
with Turkey as part of agreements intended to stem cross-border offensives by
Ankara targeting Kurdish forces it views as terrorists.
Tuesday’s raids
followed overnight clashes between Ankara’s forces and the Kurdish-led SDF west
of Kobane, said the observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group that relies
on a network of sources inside Syria.
As part of the
escalation, Kurdish forces struck inside Turkish territory, killing one
soldier, according to Turkey’s defense ministry.
“Thirteen
terrorists were neutralized” in retaliatory attacks by Ankara inside Syria, the
ministry said, adding operations were ongoing in the region.
Turkey has launched
a series of cross-border offensives targeting Kurdish forces and
Daesh since
2016, but such operations have rarely resulted in the killing of Syrian regime
fighters.
If regime forces
are confirmed to be among those killed on Tuesday, the attack would mark one of
the largest escalations since Ankara and Damascus traded attacks in 2020
following a Syrian regime strike that killed 33 Turkish soldiers in the
northwestern province of Idlib.
Turkey has stepped
up its attacks in Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria since a July 19 summit with
Iran and Russia failed to green-light a fresh offensive.
The SDF, the Syrian
Kurds’ de facto army, has since counted at least 13 of its members killed in
several Turkish attacks.
Turkey has
fervently opposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backing rebels calling for
his removal and opening its doors to refugees.
But last week,
Turkish Foreign Minister
Mevlut Cavusoglu called for reconciliation between the
Syrian government and the opposition.
Cavusoglu’s
comments had been seen as an apparent easing of Ankara’s long-standing
hostility towards Assad’s government and enraged the Syrian opposition and
rebel groups.
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