Turkey said one of its soldiers was killed on Saturday when a rocket hit a tank that it said came from a YPG-controlled area.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 more people were wounded in the air raid targeting a farm near the village of al-Amarna, which was captured by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels from Kurdish-allied militia on Sunday.
Turkey flexed its military muscle across the border in war-torn Syria this week by helping rebels retake the border town of Jarablus from ISIS, marking a decisive win for the Free Syrian Army.
The U.S. supported Turkey’s call for the Kurdish forces to move back, and Kurdish officials said they withdrew the YPG forces from Manbij. The U.N. said it has pre-positioned aid ready for delivery into Aleppo, to reach 80,000 people on the rebel side and some on the government side.
Turkey has long accused the YPG, or the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, of being linked to Kurdish fighters in its own southeast.
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.
Erdogan also met relatives of the victims of the August 20 suicide bombing in Gaziantep, which hit a Kurdish wedding, reaffirming his earlier claim that the bomber was a 14-year-old boy.
The Jarablus Military Council, which is allied with the SDF, said the air strikes in Amarneh marked an “unprecedented and risky escalation” after Turkish artillery shelling targeted Kurdish YPG forces, the backbone of the SDF alliance, the day before.
Ankara says the YPG has broken a promise made to the United States to go back across the Euphrates River after advancing westwards earlier this month.
The Jarablus Military Council is supported by the USA -backed and Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces.
Turkish warplanes and artillery struck targets held by the Kurdish YPG militia in north Syria on Sunday, security sources said, as Turkey pressed on with a cross-border campaign launched last week with its Syrian rebel allies.
Late on Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington had supported Kurdish fighters on a “limited basis” and that American officials remain in close coordination with Turkey. The Turkish Army began its operation in Northern Syria last week.
“The Turkish role here will be to protect the region”, said Faheem Issa, who commands the Sultan Murad brigade – a Syrian Turkmen unit. Minutes later, Khandakani said another barrel bomb was dropped, injuring an ambulance driver, and hampering rescue efforts.
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In comments televised by CNN Turk, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus referred to Turkey’s fight against “terrorist groups operating in Marea-Jarablus line”, an area running along the border between Bab al-Salama and the town of Jarablus. The group blamed Russian and Syrian joint military operations room for the use of such weapons in violation of worldwide law.
