Two Turkish soldiers were killed and five wounded on Tuesday in a rocket attack by Islamic State (IS) militants on their tanks in northern Syria, Turkish television reported, citing an army statement, AFP reported.”Two of our hero comrades were martyred and five were wounded in a rocket attack on two of our tanks by Daesh elements”, NTV quoted the statement as saying.Daesh is another term for IS, which is also known by the acronyms of ISIS or ISIL.
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Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the regime of Bashar al-Assad cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
The offensive continues, and Russian Federation, who is allied to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says it is deeply concerned by the movement of Turkish forces deeper into Syrian territory.
Meanwhile, President Erdoğan said that Turkey will continue hosting refugees with an open-door policy, even if Ankara does not receive financial aid.
“What can be done there will become more concrete after talks”, he said.
The two North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies have reached an uneasy agreement under which YPG fighters are meant to remain east of the Euphrates river, just outside Turkey’s proposed buffer zone, although Ankara has said it has yet to verify that they are doing so.
Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, revealed that the Turkish leader had met separately a second time with Russian and U.S. counterparts Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama before leaving the G20 meeting in Hangzhou. “Let our soldiers get together and they can do whatever is necessary”, Erdogan told the reporters.
In July 2015, a Turkish soldier was killed after IS militants shot across the border into Turkey.
Ankara wants global support to take control of a rectangle of territory stretching about 40 km into Syria, creating a buffer between two Kurdish-held cantons to the east and west and against Islamic State to the south. The Kurdish fighters are since supposed to have pulled back east of the Euphrates.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he has responded positively to a US request for a joint operation against Islamic State’s self-declared capital in Syria, Hurriyet newspaper reported. “According to Islamic State’s beliefs, they will face Armageddon here”.
