A Turkish soldier was killed and three others were injured in a rocket attack by the US -sponsored YPG terror group, launched against two Turkish tanks taking part in the military offensive against DAESH in the northern Syrian town of Jarablus.
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Turkish warplanes roared into northern Syria at daybreak and its artillery pounded what security sources said were sites held by Kurdish YPG militia, after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce overnight fighting around two villages.
Turkey said 25 Kurdish militants were killed in its air strikes and denied there were civilian casualties.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said Sunday that Turkish airstrikes killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” and destroyed five buildings where the fighters were firing at advancing rebels.
The bombardments came after Ankara suffered its first military fatality since it launched the two-pronged offensive against the Islamic State group and Syrian Kurdish militia inside Syria on Wednesday.
Turkey sees the US-backed PYD and YPG – which have links to Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey – as terror groups and wants to keep them from taking control of the border on the Syrian side.
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.
And it said Turkey had also used heavy weapons to fire on YPG positions in the northwestern province of Afrin, about 65 miles west of Jarablus. Both Turkey and Kurdish rebels are United States allies.
According to Reuters, Ankara said that its goal in its ongoing campaign in Syria is to prevent Kurdish forces from gaining more territory along Turkey’s border after ISIS was pushed from the area.
Kerry said late on Friday in Geneva that the U.S. had supported Kurdish fighters on a “limited basis” and remained in close coordination with Turkey.
Turkey’s leadership has made clear that it aims to hold back the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, which has led the fight against IS in northern Syria.
He said he was happy to regain his freedom as the Turkish-backed FSA cleaned the district of DAESH militants.
Mourners carry a coffin during a funeral procession in Gaziantep, Turkey on August 21, 2016, a day after a bombing at a wedding party in the southeastern city killed over 50 people.
The Turkish forces then launched a joint military offensive with the SDF in Jarablus in what they said was an operation against both the YPG forces and Takfiri Daesh terrorists.
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.
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Turkish security sources said warplanes and artillery had hit Kurdish YPG militia sites near Manbij, a city south of the frontier town of Jarablus that had been captured by Kurdish-aligned SDF this month in a US -backed operation.
