Hours earlier, Ankara announced the first death of a Turkish soldier in the military operation it launched into northern Syria on August 23 – saying he was killed amid escalating fighting between Turkish ground forces and the YPG.
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Another 20 were killed and 25 wounded, many seriously, in Turkish air strikes near the town of Al-Amarneh, it added.
Some of the fighters were killed in Sunday’s shelling and air strikes but the number was not yet clear, said the SOHR.
Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels drive the Islamic State group out of the border town of Jarablus last week in an operation that is also aimed at pushing back USA -allied Kurdish forces.
A Syrian rebel commander said on Sunday that Turkish-backed rebels aimed to capture Manbij.
A Reuters witness in Karkamis, a town on the Turkish side of the border, heard jets and artillery bomb Syrian targets. In general, those US special operations forces have close contact with their Turkish counterparts, and they rely on Turkey for their rear supply lines, according to people familiar with the situation. Kurdish groups have already declared a semi-autonomous administration in Syria and control most of the border area.
Turkey’s official news agency says one Turkish soldier has been killed and three wounded in Syria.
“Our concern has been the fact that the YPG has a proven track record of forcibly displacing non-Kurds”, a senior Turkish official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The Jarablus Military Council, an affiliate of the SDF, said their fighters were targeted, and described the attack as an “unprecedented and risky escalation”. Meanwhile a bloody battle for the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, is ongoing.
The UN says it has “pre-positioned” aid to go to the city for some 80,000 people.
The mish mash of alliances in this civil war has made progress against President Assad’s forces slow.
Also Sunday, government warplanes renewed their air campaign against the besieged neighborhood of al-Waer in the central city of Homs. The government denies it uses barrel bombs.
Elsewhere, the Syrian government said it now has full control of the Damascus suburb of Daraya, following the completion of a forced evacuation deal struck with the government that emptied the area of its remaining rebels and residents and ended a four-year siege and grueling bombing campaign.
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Turkey, which has more than 20 million Kurds in its southern region, has long opposed any expansion of Kurdish influence near its border, fearing the threat to its territorial integrity. The around 8,000 civilians left in the town are also being evacuated.
