Death toll in Turkish airstrike on Syria Kurds said to hit 28

On April 26, strikes against outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in Sinjar, northern Iraq, and Karaçok, Syria, killed 70 militants, but also killed up to six Peshmerga fighters from the KRG of northern Iraq.

The Turkish attacks killed at least 20 Syrian Kurdish fighters in the People’s Protection Units, or YPG.

US officials said Turkey had informed the United States less than an hour in advance that it meant to carry out the bombing raids in the crowded airspace over northern Syria and Iraq.

The Turkish army said Wednesday that the YPG launched mortar attacks from Afrin, northern Syria, on a border security post in Hatay, southern Turkey, which it responded to “in legitimate defence”.

Turkey views the YPG as an offshoot and ally of the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, which has been branded a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the European Union.

A military statement said the air strikes targeted the Zap region, the Turkish name for a river which flows across the Turkish-Iraqi border and is known as Zab in Iraq.

The strikes, created to stem the flow of weapons, men and materiel to PKK units in both countries, were executed “within the scope of the global law [and] with the aim of destroying the hotbeds of terrorism which target the unity, integrity, and safety of our country and nation”, the statement said.

“We as the People’s Defense Units say that this cowardly attack will not discourage our determination and our free will to fight and confront terrorism”, the YPG said in a statement. The Protection Units is a close USA ally against the Islamic State but is seen by Turkey as a terrorist group because of its ties to Turkey’s Kurdish rebels.

Fighting erupted on Wednesday along Syria’s northeastern border between Turkish forces and Kurdish militiamen, as tensions boiled over in the aftermath of deadly Turkish air strikes the previous day.

Iraq’s Foreign Ministry denounced the strikes as a “violation” of its sovereignty and called on the worldwide community to put an end to such “interference” by Turkey.

“We have expressed those concerns with the government of Turkey directly”.

Turkey has bombed the YPG in northern Syria for months, calling it a terrorist group because of its ties to the PKK.

Kurdish fighters said the location was initially used to broadcast TV and radio programs to the Syrian Kurdish cities and some Yazidi areas on the Iraqi border.

Turkey appeared to have been targeting a minority Yazidi militia allied with the PKK and based in the northwestern region of Sinjar.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the USA expressed concern to the Turkish government about the airstrikes, saying they were conducted without proper coordination with the US -led coalition battling Islamic State.

The SDF entered the town on Monday as part of its offensive on Raqa, Syrian heart of the jihadists self-styled “caliphate” since 2014.

Lavrov says claims that the experts were warned by a United Nations body against traveling there because it’s unsafe are “lies”, adding that Moscow went back to the United Nations and found out that there was no such warning.

“There was less than an hour of notification time before the strikes were conducted”, said U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve. Earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said it was a “source of sadness” that the Peshmerga forces had been killed.

Khaled Abboud, a member of parliament, said the center is “purely a research center, mostly for agricultural studies”.

“We’re cognizant of that and we’re also cognizant of the threat that the PKK poses to Turkey”. Syrian officials strongly deny the charges. The area is controlled by hard-line rebel factions, some associated with al-Qaida.