One Turkish soldier killed, 5 injured in Syria
-
Turkish soldiers work to push people back from the area after a rocket hit a road in the Reyhanli district in Hatay Province, near the Turkey-Syria border, on January 31, 2018. (Photo by AFP)
Turkey’s military says one Turkish soldier has been killed and five others have been injured in an attack by unidentified militants on the troops as they were setting up a military post in northwest Syria.
According to Press TV, Turkey’s armed forces said in a statement on Tuesday that the militants had launched a rocket and mortar attack on the Turkish forces on Monday.
According to the statement, the Turkish forces conducted retaliatory strikes on the militants.
The Turkish army did not specify who the militants behind the assault were.
It also said that one civilian member of the Turkish contingent was also injured in the attack.
Turkish forces on Monday set up a military post southwest of the Syrian city of Aleppo reportedly as part of the Astana agreement with Iran and Russia on the creation of “de-escalation zones.”
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the new Turkish observation post was near the village of El-Ais.
Under the deal between Ankara, Moscow, and Tehran — aimed at reducing violence — Turkey reportedly agreed to set up a dozen observation posts in Idlib and neighboring provinces.
In mid-September last year, Russia, Iran, and Turkey, which together act as guarantor states in peace talks for Syria, agreed on the details of four “de-escalation zones” in the Arab country, including in Idlib, during peace talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
The Northwestern Province of Idlib, which borders Turkey and is largely under the control of al-Nusra Front terrorists, is one of the last main strongholds of Takfiri extremists opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Separately, Turkey has been waging “Operation Olive Branch” against Syria’s Afrin region since January 20 in a bid to eliminate the US-backed Kurdish forces from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as a terror organization and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The latter has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Monday that 142 civilians have been killed and 345 others wounded since the start of the operation in Afrin.
According to the report, the Turkish forces have also inflicted significant damage on the region’s infrastructure, residential buildings, and mosques in the Syrian region.
The Turkish Afrin operations are not authorized by Damascus.
ME
