ISTANBUL: Turkey announced on Sunday it had targeted the bases of outlawed Kurdish militants across Northern Syria and Iraq in airstrikes, which were being used to carry “terrorist” attacks on its soil.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitoring group said that the strikes in northern and northeastern Syria overnight killed at least 31 people. Its primary target was the Syrian Kurdish forces’ bases in the areas.
The airstrikes, codenamed Operation Claw-Sword, are carried out a week after an explosion in Central Istanbul that claimed six lives and injured 81 people. Turkey accused the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of the attack, which has waged a bloody insurgency in the area for decades. Ankara and its Western allies have designated it a terror outfit.
However, it has denied involvement in the Istanbul blast.
‘Operation Carried Out Within the Scope of Turkish Strategy’
The defense ministry said in a statement air operation was successfully carried out within the scope of Turkish strategy to eradicate terrorism and its source and eliminate terror attacks against its forces and people from Syria and northern Iraq.
It said that the air strikes hit PKK positions in the mountainous areas of northern Iraq Hakruk, Kandil, and Asos, and Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG)—considered a terror group by Ankara – in Tal Rifaat, Ayn al-Arab, Jazira, and Derik regions in Syria.
It added that a total of 89 targets belonging to the militants were destroyed in the operation. It included bunkers, tunnels, shelters, caves, ammunition depots, training camps, and so-called headquarters. Many terrorists including their leaders were neutralized. All the jets safely returned to their bases after the operation.
Hulusi Akar, Defence Minister of Turkey, was seen in a footage briefing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who ordered the latest operation, which the Syrian government claimed took the lives of its soldiers.
Istanbul Blast Evoked Bitter Memories
The Istanbul blast was the deadliest terror attack in 5 years that evoked bitter memories of across the country terror attacks between 2015 and 2017. Kurdish militants or Islamic State (IS) extremists were mostly blamed for these attacks.
After the latest blast, authorities apprehended over a dozen people, including main suspect Alham Albashir who is a Syrian woman and is said to be associated with the Kurdish militants.
Bulgaria has also arrested five persons accused of having helped one of the terror suspects.
Read Also: Blast in Central Istanbul Kills Five, Injures 11: Turkish Media
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that about 25 strikes targeted the Aleppo, Hassakeh, and Raqa provinces, killing 18 members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, 12 Syrian military officials, and one journalist.
While northeastern Syria’s Kurdish authorities said 29 people were killed, including eleven civilians, 15 fighters working with the military, two silo guards, and 1 Kurd fighter. Turkish military in the past denied claims of targeting civilians in its strikes.
