At least 15 civilians were killed Sunday in the village of Jeb el-Kussa (Bir Qusa) near the Syrian city of Jarablus as it was targeted by Turkish forces, an SDF representative told Sputnik.
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It has launched a military operation to target so-called Islamic State (IS) and Kurdish militia five days ago – carrying out air strikes and sending tanks and troops into Syria. They posted images allegedly showing the village after it was taken, including pictures the accounts said showed Kurdish militants captured alive in the area during the battles, as well as ID cards allegedly belonging to SDF fighters.
He also said Turkish-backed rebels were pushing west against Islamic State.
The Turkish military said it was showing the “utmost sensitivity” and taking “all necessary measures” to prevent damage to the local civilian population.
Turkey has long accused the YPG, or the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, of being linked to the outlawed PKK in its own southeast.
Various factions of the Turkey-backed Syrian rebels said Sunday they had seized at least four villages and one town from Kurdish-led forces south of Jarablus. They underscored this today with a flurry of attacks on a pair of Kurdish villages that left at least 35 civilians killed.
President Tayyip Erdogan struck a defiant note during a visit to the site of the wedding attack.
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.
The US has backed Turkey’s anti-IS operations in Syria, and both countries have demanded that Kurdish forces withdraw to the east bank of the Euphrates river.
The latest fighting is likely to raise deep concerns with Washington, Turkey’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally which supports the YPG as an effective adversary of IS.
The rocket fire came from members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Anadolu said.
The militants were killed around Jarablus, a Syrian town on the border with Turkey, the military said.
Turkish forces carried out their first air strikes on pro-Kurdish positions yesterday as part of what Ankara is calling “Operation Euphrates Shield”. It was the first Turkish death reported in Turkey’s campaign.
Already engulfed by a Kurdish insurgency back home, the Turkish government fears the PKK could use Syria soil to launch a further wave of terror attacks on its territory. “We will fight all terrorist groups, including (the Kurdish-led fighters).in all of northeast Aleppo”, said Capt. Abdel-Salam Abdel-Razzak, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki group. The group blamed the Russian and Syrian joint military operations room for the use of such weapons in violation of worldwide law. The U.N. said it has pre-positioned aid ready for delivery into Aleppo, to reach 80,000 people on the rebel side and some on the government side.
The Syrian army said it was in complete control of the town, from which roughly 8,000 civilians were due to be evacuated.
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On Saturday, the last rebel fighters were evacuated from the town of Daraya just outside Damascus, under a deal that followed a brutal 4-year government siege.
