ISTANBUL: The Turkish military “neutralized” 26 Kurdish militants in northern Syria overnight in retaliation for a missile attack on a Turkish base, the defense ministry said on Friday, as the conflict escalated nearly a week after a bombing in Ankara.
Turkiye usually uses the term “neutralized” to mean killed.
A rocket attack on a base by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia killed one Turkish policeman and wounded seven officers and soldiers in the Dabiq region of northwestern Syria on Thursday evening, Ankara said.
Turkish airstrikes
The defense ministry said Turkiye had separately carried out airstrikes and destroyed 30 militant targets elsewhere in northern Syria, including an oil well, a warehouse and shelters, according to Arab News.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing in Ankara, which left two dead and wounded two policemen. Turkiye said the attackers came from Syria, but Syrian SDF forces denied this.
Turkiye lists the YPG as a terrorist organization and says it is indistinguishable from the PKK, which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 that has killed more than 40,000 people.
The United States and the European Union consider the PKK, but not the YPG, to be terrorists.
The YPG is also the core of the SDF forces in the US-led coalition against Daesh militants. American support for them in the long term causes tension with Turkey.
The SDF said Turkish attacks had killed eight people since the Ankara bombing.
Underscoring the tensions, the Pentagon said the United States on Thursday shot down an armed Turkish drone operating near its forces in Syria, the first time Washington has shot down an aircraft of NATO ally Turkey.
A Pentagon spokesman said Turkish drones were seen in airstrikes in Hasakah, northeastern Syria, and one drone came within less than half a kilometer (0.3 miles) of US troops, was deemed a threat and shot down by F-16s.
A Turkish Defense Ministry official said the drone did not belong to the Turkish armed forces. However, a security source said Turkey’s National Intelligence Service (MIT) had carried out strikes against Kurdish militant targets in Syria.
Ankara said on Thursday that a ground operation in Syria was one option it could consider. Turkiye has made several previous incursions into northern Syria against the YPG.
