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TURKEY HAS SAID that one of its soldiers was killed in northern Syria, the first such fatality in its offensive against a Kurdish militia.
Three more soldiers were injured in the “operation region”, the defence ministry said in a statement after clashes with the militia yesterday. It gave no further details.
Fighting broke out in several locations along the roughly 120-kilometre wide front where operations are focused, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a Kurdish military official said.
The ministry’s statement comes after shelling from the militia into Turkey and Turkish military strikes in northern Syria, with casualties on both sides.
Seven civilians including a nine-month-old baby were killed in Turkish border towns in Sanliurfa and Mardin provinces. Nearly 70 were injured.
Turkey Wednesday began an air and ground offensive supporting Syrian rebels against the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia.
Ankara has long opposed US support for the YPG in the fight against the Islamic State extremist group, arguing the militia is a “terrorist” offshoot of Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey.
According to the UK-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, at least 29 fighters and 10 civilians have been killed in the war-ravaged country since the start of the assault.
US President Donald Trump has suggested Washington could mediate between Turkey and Kurdish groups.
“We have one of three choices: Send in thousands of troops and win Militarily, hit Turkey very hard financially and with sanctions, or mediate a deal between Turkey and the Kurds!” he tweeted.
“I hope it’s going to be the last one,” he told reporters later.
This added third option was the latest twist in the president’s changing stance regarding the fate of Kurdish militias that until recently were fighting alongside US troops in Syria.
After coming under fierce criticism from his own party, Trump said he intended to limit Turkey’s offensive with the threat of economic sanctions.
However it is unclear what the limits for him would be other than that he wants the offensive deep into Syrian territory to be “humane.”
- © AFP 2019.
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Go wan Kurds, keep it up
The world should boycott Turkish goods and don’t use their airline and not holiday in their country. It’s a total disgrace what is happening.
@Dizzy: Good call.
@Dizzy: If they aren’t responding like that to the weekly killings of Palestinian civilians by Israel, they are hardly going to worry about a military intervention by Turkey.
Keep it up!
He wouldn’t have been killed if he wasn’t there…just as none of those Turkish soldiers should be
@Paul Heffernan: I am sure you would say the same about any english military killed in Syria too.
@DaMoons: 100%. War mongers who go in search of murder.
Turkey doing ethnic cleansing in order to gain land from Syria as it will lead to as the UN does nothing. If no one does anything then Israel will do the same by invading Southern Syria and taking that area off Syria then and that might be why Trump has withdrawn as he was never invited there in the first place…
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22683261
http://armswatch.com/us-task-force-smoking-gun-smuggles-weapons-to-syria-serbia-files-part-2/
Burn em all!
have your say