Turkey launched airstrikes over several towns in northern Syria on Saturday, U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces reported.
Turkish military jets are conducting airstrikes against Kobane, Derik, Ad Darbasiyah,and Ain Eissa. Turkey is destabilizing the most stable region in Syria. We call on the international community to put an end to the Turkish aggression pic.twitter.com/4MkSkJbY0D
— Elham Ahmad (@ElhamAhmadSDC) November 19, 2022
SDF Commander General Mazloum Kobani: Airstrikes affect the entire region
Turkey’s bombing of our security zones threatens the entire region.
This bombardment is not in favor of any party.
We’re doing everything we can to avoid a major catastrophe. When war breaks out, everyone is affected.
The attacks will not be limited to our regions, which have been subject to aggressive and barbaric bombing.
We ask our families to stay at home and follow the instructions of the security forces.
An SDF spokesman said that in 2018, the village of El-Beilonia, where the Afrin refugees live close together, and the village of Dahir al-Arab, where the displaced from Kobani live, were also attacked by warplanes.
Saleh Moslem
Turkey attacking Kobani by warplanes in revenge for defeating ISIS.
Ilham Ahmed, President of the Syrian Democratic Council
Turkish military jets conduct air strikes on Kobane, Derik, Ad Darbasiyah and Ain Eissa. Turkey is destabilizing Syria’s most stable region. We call on the international community to end Turkish aggression.
The airstrikes occurred a week after a bomb rocked a bustling avenue in the heart of Istanbul, killing six people and wounding over 80 others. Turkish authorities blamed the attack on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as well as Syrian Kurdish groups affiliated with it. The Kurdish militants groups have, however, denied involvement.
Ankara and Washington both consider the PKK a terror group, but disagree on the status of the Syrian Kurdish groups, which have been allied with the U.S. in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
Following the strikes, the Turkish ministry of defense posted a photo of a fighter plane with the phrase, “The treacherous attacks of the scoundrels are being held to account.”
The airstrikes targeted Kobani, a strategic town near the Turkish border that Ankara had previously attempted to overtake in its plans to establish a “safe zone” along northern Syria. SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami in a tweet added that two villages heavily populated with displaced people were under Turkish bombardment. He said the strikes had resulted in “deaths and injuries.”
Syrian opposition media reported that Turkish airstrikes targeted Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces positions.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that the strikes had also hit Syrian army positions and that at least 12 had been killed, including both SDF and Syrian army soldiers.
The observatory said about 25 air strikes were carried out by Turkish warplanes on sites in the countryside of Aleppo, Raqqa and Hasakah.
In neighboring Iraq, the U.S. Consulate General in Erbil said it is monitoring “credible open-source reports” of potential Turkish military action in northern Syria and northern Iraq in the coming days.
The Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria said Saturday that if Turkey attacks, then fighters in the area would have “the right to resist and defend our areas in a major way that will take the region into a long war.”