QAMISHLI, Syria — A Turkish strike hit a Kurdish position inside a Russian base in Syria
Wednesday killing a fighter, a Kurdish official said, as Turkey pressed an air
offensive against Kurdish targets in Syria and Iraq.
اضافة اعلان
The drone strike
also wounded three fighters of the Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),
a key ally of the US-led coalition battling Daesh in the region, SDF official
Farhad Shami said.
Britain-based war
monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a Russian soldier was also
wounded in the strike, which came a day after a similar deadly strike on
another base in northeastern Syria that is used by the US-led coalition.
There was no
immediate confirmation from Moscow.
Russia has had
troops in Syria since it intervened in support of President Bashar Al-Assad in
2015.
Its main bases lie
in the northwest but since 2019 it has also had troops in northeastern Syria
acting as a buffer between Turkish and Kurdish forces.
Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed the November 13 bombing on the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which operates rear-bases in northern Iraq.
On Monday, he
renewed a longstanding threat to launch a cross-border ground operation into
SDF-controlled areas of northeastern Syria, drawing calls for restraint from
both Moscow and Washington.
The SDF is
dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is regarded as
a “terrorist” group by Ankara for its alleged links to the PKK.
Turkish artillery
carried out heavy shelling on Wednesday of the area around the jail in the
border city of Qamishli where
Daesh prisoners are held, the SDF official and
the Observatory said.
The monitoring group also reported Turkish drone strikes
against four oil or gas facilities in Hasakeh province, including a gas
refinery and an oil pumping station.
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