The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) media office has reported that “the mercenaries of the Turkish occupation” launched attacks covering a wide area, stretching from Tell Abyad (Girê Spî) to Idlib, on 20 and 21 November, resulting in fierce clashes, and casualties on the Turkish-backed side.
Syrian opposition military sources also report that over 70 artillery shells and rockets were launched by the Syrian government targeting positions of the Islamist militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the region to the west of Aleppo. The reports go on to say that the HTS response resulted in the deaths of five Syrian soldiers and injuries to others at the base of the Syrian regime’s 46th Regiment in Aleppo.
A military source said that Syrian airstrikes killed three HTS fighters and wounded seven others in eastern Idlib, and four HTS members were injured in Kafr Amma, west of Aleppo, exacerbating the mounting toll on both personnel and infrastructure in these contested areas.
Turkish-backed mercenaries attempted to infiltrate the village of Abdoke, west of Tell Abyad. SDF sources claimed to have successfully repelled the mercenaries, preventing them from seizing the village. Tell Abyad has been at the heart of the contested territory since Turkey’s 2018 incursion into Kurdish enclaves in the region.
Northern Syria, and Kurdish-controlled regions in particular, have been a focal point for periodic incursions by Turkish forces and Turkish-backed militias since 2018, when Turkey’s first large-scale operation in the region, Operation Olive Branch, targeted the Kurdish enclave of Afrin (Efrîn) in northwestern Syria. In October 2019 its second operation, Operation Peace Spring, aimed to establish a “safe zone” along the Turkish-Syrian border, displacing thousands from Kurdish-majority areas such as Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ayn (Serê Kaniyê).
In recent years, Turkey has regularly targeted the northeastern regions of Syria, viewing them as an existential threat to its centralised system, particularly due to the perceived support of the population for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). However, the SDF have effectively thwarted many of these efforts, significantly obstructing Turkish influence in the region.
