There were reports on Saturday that suspected Kurdish militants fired four rockets at Diyarbakir Airport in southeast Turkey.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 40 civilians had been killed in Turkish shelling and air strikes on two areas held by pro-Kurdish forces in northern Syria, the first report of significant civilian casualties in Turkey’s operation.
A group monitoring the Syrian war says Turkish air strikes have killed at least 15 civilians on the fifth day of an incursion against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Kurdish forces in northern Syria.
Sunday’s operations took Turkey deeper inside Syria, into an area where the Kurdish forces that control much of the border had begun to expand.
Earlier Turkish jets bombed an ammunition dump and command centre for “terror groups”, Ankara said, on the fourth day of an intervention created to clear Isis (Islamic State) from border areas and contain Kurdish expansion.
It fears Kurdish fighters gaining an unbroken strip of territory along its border, which would be a huge boost to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a banned Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy in Turkey.
The Turkish soldier was killed and three more wounded yesterday in a rocket attack by Kurdish militia on two tanks taking part in an offensive against the pro-Kurdish forces south of Jarabulus.
President Tayyip Erdogan is expected to visit the site of that wedding attack in Gaziantep, in southeastern Turkey, to pay his respects to families of the victims later on Sunday.
Operation Euphrates Shield, which was launched on Wednesday, is aimed at improving security, supporting coalition forces and eliminating the terror threat along Turkey’s border through FSA fighters backed by Turkish armor, artillery and jets.
Turkey said the dead were Kurdish YPG militants. So Turkey’s action against SDF-allied forces puts it odds with a fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member, adding a further twist to Syria’s complex war that began in 2011 with an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and has drawn in regional states and world powers. The group blamed the Russian and Syrian joint military operations room for the use of such weapons in violation of global law. The United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has urged warring parties to state by Sunday whether they will commit to a 48-hour humanitarian cease-fire across the city. “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.
Russia, which backs Assad, has endorsed the proposal.
Fighting over the weekend continued in other parts of Syria. The government denies it uses barrel bombs.
The escalation against the neighborhood comes after the evacuation of Daraya, a Damascus suburb, following a deal struck with the government after a grueling bombing campaign and a tight siege.
Others posted visuals of fighting.
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Turkish troops head to the Syrian border, in Karkamis, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016.
