ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Monday said they destroyed several Turkish military vehicles and radar systems in one of two allegedly under-construction bases near the northern Syrian city of Manbij.
“The Turkish occupation has continued to exploit the prevailing conditions in Syria. This includes the establishment of new occupation bases within Syrian territory, notably two new bases in Manbij and west of the Euphrates River,” the SDF said in a statement.
Turkey has not confirmed the existence of the bases.
In the statement, the Kurdish-led force also said they carried out an operation that “resulted in the destruction of two portable radar systems, a radar-jamming system, and an armored vehicle” belonging to Ankara near Qere Qozaq bridge, south of the symbolic Kurdish city of Kobane.
The conflict in northern Syria intensified late last month when Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militants launched an operation against Kurdish forces, taking control of the northwestern Shahba region and Manbij in succession. The SDF launched a counterattack last week, claiming to have regained control of several villages near Manbij.
The SNA has sent scores of troops to strike the crucial Tishreen Dam on the Euphrates River and seize it from Kurdish forces. They are also threatening Kobane, where Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) with US backing famously repelled a brutal Islamic State (ISIS) offensive in January 2015.
But Ankara considers these Kurdish fighters as terrorists. It accuses the YPG of being the Syrian front for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been engaged in a 40-year-long conflict with the Turkish state.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that 11 people were killed on Monday in clashes between the SDF and SNA as the Kurdish-led force infiltrated the outer neighborhoods of Manbij city.
On Monday, Turkey claimed it killed two YPG fighters in an airstrike in northern Syria.
