Turkish jets strike US-backed Kurdish militia in Syria
Up to 200 killed in attacks on shelters, ammunition storage and armoured vehicles
Turkish jets carried out air strikes against a US-backed Kurdish militia in northern Syria, killing as many as 200 fighters, the Turkish army said in a statement. The Kurdish militia said the death toll was lower.
The 26 air strikes targeted the group — called the People’s Protection Unit, or YPG — north of Aleppo, an area close to the Turkish border that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to keep free from Kurdish influence.
The attacks on a militia that the US counts as an essential force in the fight against Isis in Syria could further complicate Turkey’s relationship with its Nato ally. The raids hit shelters, ammunition storage and armoured vehicles, the military said.
They were the first confirmed Turkish air strikes on Syrian territory since November 2015, when Turkey’s military shot down a Russian fighter jet in the border region, sparking a diplomatic row between Ankara and Moscow.
Mr Erdogan has repeatedly urged the US to use Turkish-trained Syrian rebels for operations inside Syria, but those fighters have proven unable to advance without heavy support from the Turkish military.
Turkey backs rebels fighting to oust the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, in Syria’s five-year war, but has been concerned that Kurds have a broader strategy of establishing a de facto state in northern Syria that could one day aspire to independence.
The air strikes come as Mr Erdogan has protested the use of Kurdish and Shia militias in Iraq to free Mosul from Isis, rather than depend on the support of Turkey, which has stationed troops inside Iraq for more than a year.
“If there are threats in Syria or Iraq, we will not wait for the threats to grow and come to our borders,” Mr Erdogan said. “We will drain the swamps instead of killing mosquitoes.”
Turkey considers the YPG to be allied with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the EU and the US. But US-support for the YPG has seen it create a near contiguous zone of control south of Turkey’s border, with land wrested from Isis.
Two months ago, Turkey sent troops into Syria to stop the YPG from joining those territories, liberating a town called Jarablus from Isis in the process. It was its most significant intervention in the Syrian conflict.