Turkish(Washington Insider Magazine)-SYRIA (Transatlantic Today) – According to a military source cited by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a Turkish airstrike on military positions in the countryside of Aleppo resulted in at least 3 Syrian troops being killed and 6 others being injured.
Without providing any additional information, the official said that as a result of the operation on Tuesday, Syrian troops had destroyed certain Turkish army outposts as well as those of opposition fighters supported by Turkey.
The alleged assaults happened close to the town of Kobane, which is held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by the United States, and the scene of nightly combat between the organization and Turkish forces. according to Al Jazeera.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey views as the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, make up the majority of the SDF (PKK). The PKK has been labelled as a “terrorist” organisation by Turkey, the US, and the EU.
An opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, headquartered in Britain, reported that 17 individuals were killed in the Turkish attack, though it was not immediately apparent if all of them were Syrian military. It stated that eight other individuals had injuries.
A Kurdish news organization headquartered in SDF-held territory in northern Syria, Hawar News, claimed the deaths of 16 Syrian soldiers, while North Press Agency reported the deaths of 22 soldiers.
In Syria, discrepancies in death counts just after strikes are not unusual.
The Turkish government did not respond right away.
Meanwhile, a soldier was killed in an overnight attack by Kurdish troops inside Turkish territory in the town of Birecik in the bordering province of Sanliurfa, according to the Turkish defense ministry.
In retaliatory assaults inside Syria, Ankara “neutralised 13 terrorists,” the ministry reported, noting that raids in the area were ongoing.
Since 2016, Turkey has engaged in three significant cross-border armed operations in northern Syria, taking hundreds of kilometers of territory and invading the nation at a depth of around 30 kilometers. These operations mostly targeted the YPG.
President Bashar al-Assad has faced fierce opposition from Turkey, which has supported rebels seeking for his overthrow and welcomed migrants.
However, Mevlut Cavusoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey, called for rapprochement between the Syrian government and opposition last week.
His remarks infuriated the Syrian opposition and rebel organizations since they were interpreted as an apparent softening of Ankara’s longtime hostility towards al-Assad’s administration.
