ANKARA: Turkish airstrikes in Syria’s Kurdish-held northeast resulted in the deaths of six civilians on Monday, said a war monitor and local media.
Ankara launched operations in Iraq and Syria in response to deadly attacks on its soldiers. The retaliation followed two separate assaults on Turkish bases in northern Iraq, claiming the lives of 12 soldiers, which Turkiye attributed to Kurdish militants.
Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported, “Six civilians have been killed in separate Turkish airstrikes.” Four of the victims were employees of a printing press in the northern city of Qamishli, near the Turkish border. Strikes targeted around a dozen facilities run by the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration, hitting a mill and a gas storage facility, among others.
The Syrian Kurdish news agency ANHA also confirmed six deaths, with four at the printing press and six additional injuries. Earlier, airstrikes against oil sites near the Turkish border were reported on Saturday evening.
Turkish Airstrikes Against Kurdish Escalate Conflict
Turkiye intensified airstrikes in Syria’s northeast in October following an attack in Ankara that injured two security personnel. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies, claimed responsibility for the bombing. Turkiye views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), dominant in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as an offshoot of the PKK.
Since 2016, Turkiye has conducted multiple ground operations to remove Kurdish forces from northern Syria’s border areas. The Syrian conflict, beginning in 2011 with a government crackdown on protests, has resulted in over half a million deaths and evolved into a devastating war involving foreign armies and jihadist groups.
