Share

PYD starts massive attack in northern Syria

Ahmet Davutoglu said the Syrian man, who he identified as Sahih Neccar, carried out the attack in co-operation with Turkey’s own outlawed Kurdish rebel group.

Advertisement

The Ankara explosion occurred on Wednesday in an area close to Turkey’s parliament, the Department of Defense and a military training academy in the nation’s capital.

At least 500 rebels crossed the Turkish border on Wednesday and headed for the Syrian town of Azaz in northern Aleppo province where opposition forces have suffered setbacks at the hands of Kurdish fighters.

The military said Thursday the warplanes struck the region of Haftanin in northern Iraq, targeting a group of some 60-70 rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

A ceasefire in 2013 ended last July when Turkey launched air strikes against PKK camps in northern Iraq.

The rebels and the Turkish government accuse the Kurdish militias of a campaign of ethnic cleansing of Arab-inhabited villages in a bid to carve a fiefdom in Syria’s north.

Interior Minister Efkan Ala said that 14 people have been detained in different provinces throughout the country in connection with the Ankara blast, according to Anadolu.

The PKK has been fighting Turkish troops since the 1980s and is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the USA and the European Union.

“We recognize that the Turks do [label the PYD as terrorists], and I understand that”.

“We hope that it doesn’t happen”, Lars Bystrom, spokesman form the Stockholm Police said of the risk of further attacks.

But the rapid advance of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters has infuriated Ankara and threatened to drive a wedge between North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies.

“Despite all the provocations and attacks by the Turkish army on the border of Rojava (Syrian Kurdish area) we have not responded and acted in a historic responsible manner”, the statement said.

Mr Erdogan said the attack would show the worldwide community the strong links that exist between the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish militias.

Turkey also faced two other deadly bombings in the country’s Kurdish-dominated southeast earlier in the year. Buses carrying military personnel were targeted while waiting at traffic lights at an intersection, the Turkish military said while condemning the “contemptible and dastardly” attack.

That’s according to the Anadalou Agency, which also quotes Davutoglu warning Russian Federation against helping the YPG: “All those who intend to use terror pawns against Turkey must know that [playing] this game of terror will hit them like a boomerang”.

Davutoglu blamed the suicide attack on a Syrian Kurd with links to the YPG, adding nine others linked to the attack were arrested after the bombing.

Last month 11 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the tourist heart of Turkey’s biggest city, Istanbul.

But in the complicated tangle of friends and foes in the Middle East, Washington relies heavily on the Syrian Democratic Union Party, or PYD, and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, in fighting extremists from the Islamic State group.

Also Thursday, at least six soldiers were killed in an attack on their convoy in southeastern Turkey blamed on Kurdish militants, security sources said. “Arta FM contacted the municipality and nobody is registered under the name of the perpetrator”, he said.

Advertisement

Since Morsi’s ouster, terrorist attacks in Egypt have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, mostly claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the regional Islamic State (IS) militant group.

Ankara Blast