Turkish shelling and air strikes killed at least 35 civilians in Syria today, the fifth day of an incursion against Islamic State group jihadists and Kurdish militia, a monitor said.
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This picture, taken around five kilometers west of the Turkish border city of Karkamis in the southern region of Gaziantep on August 25, 2016, shows Turkish army tanks rolling to the Syrian side of the border for an operation in the town of Jarabulus. The deployment was the latest phase in Turkey’s military operation inside Syria-codenamed “Euphrates Shield”-to oust IS from the border region and also counter advances by a Kurdish militia opposed by Ankara”.
The primarily Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) said Turkey’s military had fired on a village near Kobani on Friday night, about 20 miles east of Jarablus.
Also on Sunday, Twitter accounts belonging to Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups claimed to have “liberated” a village called Amarnah, near Jarablus, from the US -backed SDF.
Our correspondent said the Turkish army has been “shelling and launching air strikes” in areas controlled by the YPG. But it also is aimed at US -allied Kurdish forces that have gained control in recent months of most of the territory along the Turkey-Syria border.
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.
Hayyan, a Homs resident whose parents remain in the al-Waer neighborhood, said government warplanes launched 18 airstrikes Saturday in the area, the last two of which dropped incendiary bombs.
But in interviews on Friday, Syrian Arab and ethnic Turkmen rebels backed by the United States and Turkey said the Kurds were still in control of Manbij, and they vowed to liberate it.
However, Turkey’s offensive has so far focused mostly on targeting forces allied to the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition that includes YPG, an Observatory source said. Images of other children shaking as doctors tried to treat them for the burns were posted on social media sites. The district’s hospital was bombed and made non-operational earlier this month.
The al-Waer neighborhood of almost 75,000 people has been under siege since March and has been one area that U.N agencies have reported hard to access.
The Syrian army said it was in complete control of the town, from which roughly 8,000 civilians were due to be evacuated.
The escalation against the neighbourhood comes after the evacuation of Daraya, a Damascus suburb, following a deal struck with the government after a gruelling bombing campaign and a tight siege.
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Meanwhile, the UN’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan De Mistura, urged the opposition to approve plans to deliver aid to rebel-held eastern Aleppo and government-controlled western Aleppo through a regime-held route north of the city during a 48-hour humanitarian pause.
