ISTANBUL: Turkiye said on Wednesday it had killed 13 Kurdish militants in northern Syria and two in Iraq, a sign that Ankara has pressed on with its campaign against fighters, some with possible links to US allies, since Donald Trump took office in the White House last week.
The Turkish defense ministry said the Kurdish fighters it had “neutralized” in Syria belonged to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
Turkiye considers the PKK and YPG to be identical; the United States considers them separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main allies in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.
Turkiye has long called on Washington to withdraw support for the YPG, and has expressed hope that Trump would revise the policy inherited from the previous administration of President Joe Biden.
Tuesday’s report of major clashes was the second within days: Turkiye also reported having killed 13 Kurdish militants on Sunday.
Turkish forces and their allies in Syria have repeatedly fought with Kurdish militants there since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Assad last month.
Turkiye has said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed umbrella group that includes the Kurdish YPG, must disarm or face a military intervention.
Under the Biden administration the United States has had 2,000 troops in Syria fighting alongside the SDF and YPG.
Turkiye says it killed 15 Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq
https://arab.news/nqc8z
Turkiye says it killed 15 Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq
Armed clashes erupt in Aleppo between Syrian army and Kurdish-led SDF
- Two civilians were killed and eight others, including two children, were injured
- Defense Ministry accused SDF of targeting homes after they suddenly withdrew from jointly operated checkpoints, fired at government forces
LONDON: The Syrian Ministry of Defense accused the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces of launching a surprise attack on the Internal Security Forces and the Syrian Arab Army in Aleppo on Monday.
The clashes erupted in the densely populated neighborhoods of Ashrafiya and Sheikh Maqsoud, which have a Kurdish majority.
The Ministry of Health announced that two civilians were killed and eight others, including two children, were injured. It condemned the attack on a residential area near Al-Razi Hospital by SDF forces.
Syrian authorities also reported that one member of the Internal Security Forces and another from the army were injured, along with several civil defense personnel.
The Ministry of Defense denied the claims that the army initiated the conflict. It accused the SDF of targeting homes after they suddenly withdrew from jointly operated checkpoints and fired at government forces with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade shells, and mortars.
Injured civilians were admitted to Al-Razi Hospital in the city, and two Syrian Civil Defense personnel were injured while on duty at the Shihan roundabout, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
Fighting has spread to the Syriac Quarter, Sheikh Taha and Al-Jamiliya neighborhoods and to areas between the Shihan and Al-Larmon roundabouts, north of Aleppo, prompting dozens of families to flee their homes toward safer locations in Khalidiya and Nile Street, and closing the main Gaziantep-Aleppo highway. The civil defense accused SDF forces of shooting at one of their vehicles, which carried four members.
Azzam Al-Gharib, the governor of Aleppo, urged citizens to avoid approaching the clash sites or roads leading to the city center until further notice.
