AFP said Turkey on Saturday sent six more tanks into Syria as pro-Ankara forces pressed on with de-mining work in the Syrian town of Jarablus, captured from ISIS this week.
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Jeb el-Kussa is located 14 kilometers (almost nine miles) south of Jarabulus and is controlled by fighters from the area backed by Kurdish forces.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a brother and sister were killed in the air strikes that left their bodies badly charred.
The fighting pits Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, against the US -backed SDF that is the most effective ground force battling Daesh militants in Syria.
Turkish shelling and air strikeskilled at least 40 Syrians today, a monitor said, in the firstsignificant civilian casualties in Turkey’s intensifyingcampaign in northern Syria.
The Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group with a network of sources in Syria, said Turkish-allied forces had seized two villages south of Jarablus, Jub al-Kousa and al-Amarna, that were held by militias loyal to the SDF.
Ankara said the incursion was targeting positions of ISIS alongside other terrorist organizations, including the Kurdish ones, in and around Jarablus. It was unclear what part the US-led coalition against IS, of which Turkey is a member, played in the air campaign this weekend.
Operations against DAESH terrorist group in northern Syria continue.
Turkish-backed Syrian rebels have already seized five villages near Jarablus from Islamic State. But Turkey sees them as an arm of the Kurdish terrorist group, the PKK, and has attacked YPG units occupying a Syrian town.
Turkey appears to have rapidly expanded its forces there since, with local media reporting 50 tanks and 380 personnel inside Syria after three days of operations.
A Turkish soldier on his tank as they prepare for a military operation at the Syrian border as part of their offensive against the Islamic State militant group in Syria, Karkamis district of Gaziantep, Turkey on August 27, 2016.
The operation, labeled Euphrates Shield, is also aimed at pushing back USA -allied Kurdish forces.
The Syrian Observatory reported on Saturday that at least 16 people were killed when helicopters dropped explosives on a funeral in a rebel-held area of Aleppo.
On Thursday, the Turkish-backed FSA gained full control of Jarabulus after the launch of air and ground assault as part of the cross-border campaign by the Turkish armed forces supported by U.S. led coalition airstrikes a day earlier.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, has made it clear that the offensive is also aimed at reversing recent Kurdish territorial gains and has demanded the SDF withdraw east of the Euphrates River.
The state-run agency did not say if fire was from artillery or war planes or which groups were targeted.
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“These are areas that Turkey has asked the YPG to pull out of”.
