ISTANBUL: Turkey suffered heavy losses on Thursday during its offensive against a Kurdish militia in northwest Syria, with the military announcing that eight soldiers were killed and 13 more wounded.
The death toll, released by the Turkish military staff in two separate statements, makes Thursday one of the deadliest days for Ankara since launching its cross-border operation against the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria’s Afrin region on 20 January.
“As part of the operations in Afrin, five of our heroic comrades fell as martyrs and seven were wounded” on Thursday, said the staff in a first statement.
Shortly after, it issued a second statement in which it announced that three more soldiers had been killed as well as six wounded, without giving details of the circumstances.
“May God grant peace to our martyred soldiers in Afrin, all my condolences to their loved ones,” spokesman for the Turkish presidency Ibrahim Kalin said on Twitter.
The day’s toll brings the number of Turkish soldiers killed since the launch of operation “Olive Branch” to at least 40.
The private Dogan news agency reported that intense fighting had broken out in the afternoon between Turkish special forces units recently deployed in Afrin and YPG members, who mounted an ambush with the help of tunnels.
According to the report a Turkish helicopter sent to rescue the wounded had to turn back after being hit, while the area was shelled to allow an evacuation.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was informed of the incident during a visit to Senegal.
Ankara considers the YPG a “terrorist” organization closely linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that has been leading a bloody guerrilla war on Turkish soil since 1984.
However, the YPG is supported by the United States and has been spearheading the international coalition fight against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.
The situation was complicated further 10 days ago following the deployment of pro-regime elements in the enclave of Afrin, with observers warning of an increased risk of collision between the forces of Ankara and Damascus.
On Monday, Turkey deployed some 600 members of the police and gendarmerie special forces in the Afrin region, indicating it was preparing for urban fighting.
The Turkish authorities have rejected a call by the United States this week to implement the humanitarian truce, called for by the UN Security Council in Syria, with Ankara saying the UN resolution did not concern its operation.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said a humanitarian aid convoy entered the Afrin region on Thursday for the first time since the start of the Turkish offensive, which has had a severe impact on civilians.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), 141 civilians, including 27 children, have died since the beginning of the Turkish military campaign, a claim which Ankara denies.
Eight Turkish soldiers killed in Syria, 13 wounded: army
Eight Turkish soldiers killed in Syria, 13 wounded: army
Military intervention in Iran ‘not the preferred option’: French minister
- The president’s son blamed foreign interference for the protests’ violent turn, but said “the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must be addressed”
PARIS: Military intervention in Iran, where authorities launched a deadly crackdown on protesters that killed thousands, is not France’s preferred option, its armed forces minister said on Sunday.
“I think we must support the Iranian people in any way we can,” Alice Rufo said on the political broadcast “Le Grand Jury.”
But “a military intervention is not the preferred option” for France, she said, adding it was “up to the Iranian people to rid themselves of this regime.”
Rufo lamented how hard it was to “document the crimes the Iranian regime has carried out against its population” due to an internet shutdown.
“The fate of the Iranian people belongs to Iranians, and it is not for us to choose their leaders,” said Rufo.
The son of Iran’s president, who is also a government adviser, has called for internet connectivity to be restored, warning that the more than two-week blackout there would exacerbate anti-government sentiment.
Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father, Masoud, was elected president in 2024, said, “Keeping the internet shut will create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.”
“This means those who were not and are not dissatisfied will be added to the list of the dissatisfied,” he wrote in a Telegram post that was later picked up by the IRNA news agency.
Such a risk, he said, was greater than that of a return to protests if connectivity were restored.
The younger Pezeshkian, a media adviser to the presidency, said he did not know when internet access would be restored.
He pointed to concerns about the “release of videos and images related to last week’s ‘protests that turned violent’” as a reason the internet remained cut off, but criticized the logic.
Quoting a Persian proverb, he posted “‘He whose account is clean has nothing to fear from scrutiny.’”
The president’s son blamed foreign interference for the protests’ violent turn, but said “the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must be addressed.”
He went on to say that “the release of films is something we will have to face sooner or later. Shutting down the internet won’t solve anything; it will just postpone the issue.”
