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| Smoke billows upward in northern Syria by turkish attack (pict of illustration) |
Jeddah - At least 25 people were killed in northern Syria on Tuesday (08/16/2022), after Turkey launched air strikes and artillery bombings targeting Assad regime forces and Kurdish fighters near the border town of Kobane.
Quoted from Arab News, the Turkish onslaught began at night, when artillery fire hit the city and its surroundings. The attacks reportedly continued throughout the day, and at least one child was killed.
Kurdish YPG militia fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces responded with a mortar attack on a Turkish military border post in Sanliurfa province that killed one soldier and injured four others. After the mortar attack, Turkish troops returned fire against targets in the Kobane area.
“According to preliminary information in the area, 13 terrorists were neutralized. Operations in the region are continuing," the Defense Ministry in Ankara said. Dilvin, a shopkeeper in Kobane, said chaos broke out in the city when shooting escalated on Tuesday.
People started running, cars everywhere, people asking about their friends and family. Then voices started to sound, they were everywhere, There was so much screaming. So much fear. Now everyone is locked up at home."
Then on Tuesday, 11 people were killed in a Turkish airstrike on a Syrian border post run by Assad regime forces. It was not clear whether the dead were Syrian government troops or Kurdish fighters.
Syrian regime forces have been deployed in areas controlled by the SDF near the border with Turkey as part of an agreement meant to stem cross-border attacks by Ankara targeting Kurdish forces it deems terrorists.
Turkey has launched a series of attacks since 2016 targeting Kurdish and Daesh forces, but they have rarely resulted in the deaths of Syrian regime fighters. If regime forces are confirmed to be among those killed on Tuesday, the attack would be one of the biggest escalations since Ankara and Damascus swapped attacks in 2020 following a Syrian regime offensive that killed 33 Turkish soldiers in the northwestern province of Idlib.
Turkey has stepped up its offensive in Kurdish-held Syria since July, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed to get the green light from regional allies Iran and Russia for a new offensive into northern Syria.
Turkey has been hostile to Syrian leader Bashar Assad, and backs rebels calling for his ouster. But last week, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu angered the Syrian opposition by calling for reconciliation between the regime and rebels.