Turkish bombardment kills 20 civilians in Syria

But he didn’t specify a goal for the fight against the Kurdish forces.

Dozens of people were killed in Turkish bombardment in Syria on Sunday as Ankara ramped up its unprecedented offensive inside the country against the Islamic State group and Kurdish militants.

Another 20 were killed and 25 wounded, many seriously, in Turkish air strikes near the town of Al-Amarneh, it said. The fighting pits a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally against a US -backed proxy that is the most effective ground force battling IS in Syria.

Turkey sees the US-backed PYD and YPG – which have links to Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey – as terror groups and wants to keep them from taking control of the border on the Syrian side.

A spokesman for the local Kurdish administration said 75 people had been killed in both villages. Officials said Kerry and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke on phone and discussed Ankaras operation to capture Jarablus in northern Syria, AP reported.

A Turkish soldier was killed by a Kurdish rocket attack late Saturday, the first such fatality in Turkey’s ground offensive dubbed Euphrates Shield that began August 24.

On Saturday, the YPG, the armed wing of the PKK’s Syrian affiliate Democratic Union Party (PYD), targeted a Turkish tank that was deployed in Jarablus as part of the military’s operation Euphrates Shield, which intends to clear the border region of DAESH terrorists.

Turkey says that the YPG – which it regards as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – has failed to stick to a promise to return across the Euphrates River after advancing west this month despite guarantees given by Washington.

Turkey’s NTV television reported that Turkish artillery had struck YPG targets throughout the night and that Turkish warplanes had carried out new bombing sorties on Sunday morning. Turkey is a leading backer of the rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, but both Ankara and Damascus share concerns over Kurdish ambitions for autonomy.

The neighborhood came under a grueling airstrike campaign a day earlier, including incendiary bombs that left two children, a brother and sister, badly charred. The group blamed Russian and Syrian joint military operations room for the use of such weapons in violation of worldwide law.

The al-Waer neighborhood of almost 75,000 people has been under siege since March and has been one area that U.N agencies have reported hard to access.

But some rebel groups have rejected the plan unless aid passes through opposition-held areas and the ceasefire applies to other areas of Syria under siege.

On Saturday, the last rebel fighters were evacuated from the town of Daraya just outside Damascus, under a deal that followed a brutal four-year government siege.

The Homs Local Council appealed to the United Nations envoy to Syria to negotiate a truce for al-Waer, condemning the government’s “siege policy” that aims to force residents and fighters to surrender.