Syrian rebels backed by Turkish tanks clashed with Kurdish-aligned militiamen near a border city on Saturday, opposition groups and Kurdish factions said, adding yet another complication to the morass of Syria’s civil war.
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One Turkish soldier was killed and three were wounded in a rocket attack during the fight, according to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency.
The rocket fire on Saturday came from members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).
The Turkish-backed Nour el-din el-Zinki rebel group said fighters, backed by Turkish tanks, advanced Saturday on the village of Youssef Beik that lies southwest of Jarablus, seizing it from Kurdish-affiliated forces.
At least 20 civilians were killed on Sunday in Turkish shelling of a border town in Syria, a monitor group reported.
The Jarablus Military Council, part of the SDF, had said earlier on Saturday that Turkish planes hit the village of al-Amarna south of Jarablus, causing civilian casualties.
Furthermore, the Turkish-backed Sultan Murat brigade captured three SDF fighters in the Turkmen Yusuf Beg village, publishing a video beating them on camera, calling them “PKK dogs”.
The Britain-based group said four local fighters were also killed in the bombardment.
Meanwhile, Kurdish YPG official spokesman Sharvan Darkish said: “While our forces are fighting ISIS, some Turkey-backed militias are attacking our positions and hampering our and worldwide coalition fight against terror”. The gunmen and their families headed to the northern rebel-controlled Idlib province. Mohammed Khandakani, a hospital volunteer, said one of the injured told him a barrel bomb was dropped as people paid their condolences for children killed Thursday in an airstrike that left 11 children dead in the same neighborhood.
The Syrian government and its ally, Russia, are the only ones operating helicopters over Aleppo, the Observatory said. The Jarablus Military Council, affiliated with the U.S-backed Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces, said the Turkish airstrikes marked an “unprecedented and risky escalation” that “endangers the future of the region”.
The Jarabulus Military Council, which is allied with the Syrian Democratic Forces, called the Turkish incursion “a risky precedent and escalation”. Hurriyet said the Turkish forces had been given an order to “strike immediately” should the YPG be seen to make any move towards the liberated town.
The Jarablus Military Council is supported by the US -backed and Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces.
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Any action against Kurdish forces in Syria puts Turkey at odds with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally the United States.
