SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
At least 11 killed in Turkish strike on northeast Syria: monitor
Qamishli, Syria, Oct 9 (AFP) Oct 09, 2023
A Turkish air strike Monday killed 11 Kurdish security personnel and wounded dozens at a training centre for police in Kurdish-held northeast Syria, a war monitor said.

"Eleven killed and dozens wounded after a Turkish war plane targeted a training centre" belonging to the internal security forces, known as the Asayish, on the outskirts of Al-Malikiyeh in Hasakeh province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Kurdish force reported the strike in a statement, saying that "a number of our forces were killed and others wounded".

AFP correspondents said authorities in the area have called for blood donations.

Amid the chaos of Syria's long-running civil conflict, Syria's Kurds have carved out a semi-autonomous area in the country's northeast.

Since Thursday, Turkey has been bombing sites in the area, hitting civilian and military targets and infrastructure and causing casualties, according to Kurdish authorities.

Turkey's defence ministry said Friday it had launched the new wave of air strikes in retaliation for an attack in Ankara earlier this month that wounded two security personnel.

A branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies -- claimed responsibility for the first bombing to hit the Turkish capital since 2016.

Turkey launched strikes on PKK positions in northern Iraq hours after the October 1 attack, with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan saying days later that the assailants "came from Syria and were trained there".


- Kurdish denial -


The US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces led the battle that dislodged Islamic State group fighters from their last scraps of territory in Syria in 2019.

Turkey views the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that dominate the SDF as an offshoot of the PKK.

The SDF, the Kurds' de facto army in the area, denied the Ankara assailants had passed through the area.

Turkish bombings had mostly subsided over the weekend after strikes hit energy infrastructure including power stations and oil facilities on Thursday and Friday, killing at least 15 security personnel and civilians, according to the Kurdish authorities.

Since 2016, Turkey has carried out successive ground operations to expel Kurdish forces from border areas of northern Syria, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made threats of a new incursion.

Turkey supported early rebel efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and maintains a military presence in northern stretches of the war-torn country that angers Damascus.

In November last year, Turkey launched air strikes on Kurdish-held areas of Syria and Iraq in response to a bombing in Istanbul that killed six people.

The conflict in Syria has killed more than half a million people since it began in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, spiralling into a devastating war involving foreign armies, militias and jihadists.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
SPHEREx completes first full sky infrared map of the cosmos
CoDICE instrument returns first-light particle data for IMAP mission
Top 5 High Volatility Games For 2026 Chase The Biggest Jackpots Today

24/7 Energy News Coverage
The Quantum Age will be Powered by Fusion
Physicists map axion production paths inside deuterium tritium fusion reactors
Hybrid excitons speed ultrafast energy transfer at 2D organic interface

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
SDA expands Tracking Layer satellite awards and related missile defense contracts
Space Systems Command activates System Delta 80 for assured space access
Rheinmetall ICEYE Space Solutions to provide SAR reconnaissance data to German military

24/7 News Coverage
Philosopher argues AI consciousness may remain unknowable
Climate driven model explores Neanderthal and modern human overlap in Iberia
Economic losses from natural disasters down by a third in 2025: Swiss Re



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.