A Turkish strike on a position held by regime forces in northern Syria killed eleven people on Tuesday, August 16, announced the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). According to the NGO, the strike ” aimed at a position of the Syrian regime (…) near the Turkish border”: the village of Jarqali, west of the border town of Kobane.
The director of the OSDH, Rami Abdel-Rahmane, however, was not able to specify whether the victims were « issu[e]s regime forces or whether Kurdish fighters control the area”.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by Kurdish forces, also communicated on this strike and announced in a press release that “Turkish military planes” had led “twelve airstrikes against Syrian army positions deployed on the border strip west of Kobane”. The raids did ” the victims “SDF spokesman Farhad Shami said, without providing further details.
Threat of a major offensive
If the fighters killed are found to be from regime forces, the attack would mark one of the largest escalations since clashes between Ankara and Damascus in 2020, following a Syrian regime strike that had killed thirty-three Turkish soldiers in the northwestern province of Idlib.
Heavy fighting broke out overnight from Monday to Tuesday between the SDF and Turkish forces, who intensified their shelling of Kurdish positions after one of their positions on the Turkish side of the border was attacked, according to the OSDH. The Kurdish attack in Turkish territory claimed the life of a soldier, according to the Turkish Ministry of Defense. “Thirteen terrorists have been neutralized” during Ankara’s retaliatory attacks in Syria, the ministry claimed, adding that operations in the region were continuing.
Kurdish forces control most of northeastern Syria, a country fragmented since the war started in 2011. In recent years, regime forces have deployed in Kurdish-controlled areas near the Turkish border. under agreements designed to stem Ankara’s cross-border offensives against Kurdish fighters.
Turkey has launched a series of offensives in Syria targeting Kurdish forces and the Islamic State jihadist group since 2016. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been threatening since May to lead a major offensive targeting Kurds in the northeast of Syria.
Since the start of the war, his country has fiercely opposed Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, supporting the rebels. But last week Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu called for reconciliation between the Syrian government and the opposition, which angered rebels and led to anti-Turkish protests.