A source within northern Syria’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region confirmed the clashes between local fighters and Turkey’s army which has launched an incursion to expel jihadists from the border region.
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A military council linked to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said Saturday that Turkish air and artillery attacks on the village of Amarna had caused civilian casualties and called it “a unsafe escalation that threatens the fate of the region”.
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.
Turkey’s government, which is fighting a Kurdish insurgency at home, has said the Syrian campaign it opened this week is as much about about preventing Kurdish militia fighters from gaining territory in Syria as about pushing back Islamic State.
Turkey first sent tanks across the border on Wednesday as part of a two-pronged operation against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters, as well as Kurdish-led forces.
Earlier, activists had reported the first fighting between the Kurdish forces and Turkish tanks inside Syria since Ankara began its offensive.
Turkey’s military didn’t specify what the airstrikes hit, saying only that “terror groups” were targeted south of the village of Jarablus, where the clashes later ensued.
Another 20 were killed and 25 wounded, many seriously, in Turkish air strikes near the town of Al-Amarneh, it added. They have also moved west towards Islamic State areas.
The civil war in Syria has seen the Kurds, the region’s stateless minority, emerge as a powerful force and key ally in the US-led coalition against IS.
Elsewhere, the Syrian government said it now has full control of the Damascus suburb of Daraya, following the completion of a forced evacuation deal struck with the government that emptied the area of its remaining rebels and residents and ended a four-year siege and grueling bombing campaign.
Colonel Ahmed Osman, head of the Turkish-backed Sultan Murad rebel group, told Reuters the force was “certainly heading in the direction of Manbij” and hoped to take it days.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a brother and sister were killed in the airstrikes that left their bodies badly charred. A Turkish official told Reuters heavier air strikes could come in the hours ahead.
John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, said on Wednesday during a visit to Turkey that the YPG should withdraw east of the Euphrates, and that a refusal to do so would mean an end to Washington’s support for the group.
Speaking on Sunday, August 28 in Gaziantep in southeast Turkey, where 54 people were killed in a suicide attack at a Kurdish wedding last week, Erdogan said: “We can not tolerate any terror organisation within or close to our borders”.
Turkey has suffered shock waves from the conflict raging in its southern neighbour, including frequent bomb attacks by Islamic State. The government suspects the jihadist group was behind a blast at a wedding this month that killed 54 people.
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On Saturday, the Syrian rebels said they have seized a number of villages south of Jarablus from IS militants and Kurdish forces.
