The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Thursday three attacks on Turkish military targets in the past week.
The majority-Kurdish force hit an armoured vehicle and two tanks on 8 August, it announced, resulting in the deaths of 23 Turkish soldiers and two injuries.
“As the Syrian Democratic Forces, we will not leave any attack against our people unanswered,” the group said.
The SDF said the attacks occurred on the border line that separates Turkey’s Mardin (Mêrdîn) and Syria’s Qamishlo, in retaliation for recent Turkish shelling and drone strikes in north and east Syria.
“Since the beginning of August alone, seven citizens were martyred. Two of them were children. Seventeen citizens were injured, including 10 children and three women,” SDF said.
While Turkey did not announce any casualties, the Turkish Defence Ministry accused Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) of opening harassing fire.
“Six PKK/YPG terrorists who opened harassing fire on our Mardin border from the north of Syria have been neutralised via punishing fire from our Turkish Armed Forces,” the ministry said in a tweet earlier in the day.
On 9 August, the Defence Ministry announced another seven casualties from the YPG, saying a group had “attempted an attack on the Peace Spring and Euphrates Shield regions”.
However, Afrin Liberation Forces announced on the 11 August the killing of six Turkish soldiers, including officers, with 11 others injured in the occupied Shera and A’azaz regions, on August 5, 6 and 7.
Turkey’s 2019 offensive, Peace Spring, targeted Hasakah and Raqqa, Syrian territories across the border from Mardin, and Euphrates Shield was the first of Turkey’s military incursions into Syria, targeting Aleppo.
On the same day, the ministry announced another attack on the Mardin border, and reported another seven casualties from the YPG.
Meanwhile on the day of the SDF attacks, 8 August, the ministry announced the death of one sergeant, without specifying a location.
