ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Turkish drone on Wednesday targeted a vehicle in the Kurdish city of Qamishli in northeast Syria (Rojava) while dealing with a catastrophic natural disaster at home, according to a spokesperson for Kurdish forces. A civilian was killed and a member of the local security forces was injured, reported a war monitor. A destructive 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Kurdish city of Kahramanmaras in Turkey on February 6, with its impact also ripping through neighboring Syria. Several other quakes and thousands of aftershocks have occurred since then, killing nearly 50,000 in both countries. However, the humanitarian crisis at home and in Syria has not prevented Turkey from attacking Syrian Kurds. Less than a week after the initial tremors, a Turkish drone targeted a vehicle in Rojava’s Kobane city, killing many people. Farhad Shami, media head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said in a tweet on Wednesday that “in a time when the world is busy helping those affected by earthquake[s] in Turkey & Syria, the Turkish occupation is escalating against our region.” “Today, a Turkish UAV targeted a car east of Qamishlo [Qamishli]. The criminal mentality of [the] Turkish regime is more dangerous than the earthquake,” he added. The suspected Turkish drone targeted a civilian vehicle, killing a civilian and wounding a commander of the Kurdish internal security forces (Asayish), according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Ankara considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), backbone of the SDF, as the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) - armed group struggling for the greater rights of Kurds in Turkey. Ankara has listed both PKK and YPG as terrorist organizations.
