SDF says nine civilians killed in Kobane airstrike
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Monday that at least nine members of a family were killed in an airstrike near the symbolic Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria.
“The martyrdom toll from a Turkish airstrike between the villages of Qomji and Barkh Botan, south of Kobane, has risen to nine civilians from the same family, with two additional family members wounded,” the SDF said in a statement.
The Turkish airstrike on Sunday night “targeted a family engaged in agricultural work,” according to the SDF.
The strike came after the SDF last week reported “intensified attacks” with Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militants on Tishreen Dam and Qere Qozaq bridge in northern Syria.
Attacks on the strategic sites – controlled by the SDF – have been ongoing since a coalition of rebels led by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December.
The SNA is 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 claims that the YPG is the Syrian front for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been engaged in a decades-long conflict with the Turkish state.
“The martyrdom toll from a Turkish airstrike between the villages of Qomji and Barkh Botan, south of Kobane, has risen to nine civilians from the same family, with two additional family members wounded,” the SDF said in a statement.
The Turkish airstrike on Sunday night “targeted a family engaged in agricultural work,” according to the SDF.
The strike came after the SDF last week reported “intensified attacks” with Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militants on Tishreen Dam and Qere Qozaq bridge in northern Syria.
Attacks on the strategic sites – controlled by the SDF – have been ongoing since a coalition of rebels led by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December.
The SNA is 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 claims that the YPG is the Syrian front for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been engaged in a decades-long conflict with the Turkish state.