ISTANBUL: One Turkish soldier was killed and five were wounded on Monday in a rocket and mortar attack by militants as the Turkish forces were setting up a military post in northwest Syria, Turkey’s armed forces said on Tuesday.
The statement said the Turkish forces responded with retaliatory fire, without specifying who the militants behind the attack were. One civilian member of the Turkish contingent was also wounded, it said.
The army began setting up the outpost on Monday southwest of the Syrian city of Aleppo, the deepest position they have established so far inside northwestern Syria under a deal with Russia and Iran aimed at reducing violence there.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the observation post was near the village of Al-Eis, which would place it less than five km (three miles) from territory held by Syrian government forces and their allies.
A week ago, a large Turkish military convoy heading for the same area came under attack and had to pull back. The region is one of the last main strongholds of rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad.
The “de-escalation” in violence that the Turkish forces were supposed to monitor has collapsed. In December, the Syrian army alongside Iranian-backed militias and heavy Russian air power launched a major offensive to take territory in Idlib province.
Separately, Turkey launched an offensive two weeks ago into another neighboring part of Syria, the Afrin region, against Kurdish fighters who control it.
One Turkish soldier killed, five wounded in attack in northwest Syria
One Turkish soldier killed, five wounded in attack in northwest Syria
Syria accuses Hezbollah of firing shells into its territory
- “The Syrian Arab Army will not tolerate any aggression targeting Syria,” the army said in a statement to SANA
DAMASCUS: Syria said Iran-backed Hezbollah had fired artillery shells into its territory from Lebanon overnight, state media reported on Tuesday, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shia movement.
Syrian army officials said artillery shells fired from Lebanon landed near the town of Serghaya, west of Damascus, the state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.
The army accused Hezbollah of targeting Syrian army positions, telling the news agency it observed Hezbollah reinforcements at the Syrian-Lebanese border.
“The Syrian Arab Army will not tolerate any aggression targeting Syria,” the army said in a statement to SANA.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during US-Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah and Israeli forces have clashed in eastern Lebanon in recent days, and Israel has carried out strikes across Lebanon, including on the capital Beirut.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Hezbollah of working to “collapse” the state, while the head of the group’s parliamentary bloc said it had “no other option... than the option of resistance.”
Hezbollah provided military support to former Syrian president Bashar Assad, who was overthrown in December 2024 by an Islamist coalition hostile to the pro-Iranian Shia movement.
Since then, its supply routes from Syria have been cut off, and Lebanese and Syrian authorities are trying to combat smuggling across the porous border between the two countries.
