Turkish bombing kills at least 20 in northern Syria

The Turkish government wants to stop Kurdish forces gaining control of an unbroken swath of Syrian territory on its border, which it fears could embolden the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey.

Any action against Kurdish forces in Syria puts Turkey at odds with the USA, its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally.

The Jarablus Military Council group, which is allied to the SDF, said a Turkish air strike in the village of al-Amarna caused civilian casualties and called it “a risky escalation that threatens the fate of the region”.

Turkish media named the dead soldier as Ercan Celik, 28, and said a funeral for him would be held on Sunday in Gaziantep, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now visiting.

“Turkey has not and will not surrender to any terrorist organizations or terror methods”, he said.

“We will support all work to clean Syria and Iraq of Daesh”, Erdogan told the rally, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.

Operations against DAESH terrorist group in northern Syria continue.

Turkey’s military says 25 PKK/PYD terrorists were “neutralized” in northern Syria in an air strike on Sunday, Anadolu reported.

Turkish tanks and attack aircraft have clashed with Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria, just hours after hopes were raised about a new general ceasefire in the war-torn country.

The Kurdish-led forces “must pull back to the east of the Euphrates”.

Jeb el-Kussa is located 14km south of Jarablus and is controlled by fighters from the area backed by Kurdish forces.

SDF units crossed the Euphrates in a US-backed operation to liberate the Isis stronghold of Manbij last month.

According to AP, citing own sources the total number of villages gained by Syrian rebels and Turkish forces stands at four.

The BBC, however, said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 35 civilian casualties.

Erdogan, in a speech Sunday, said his nation will continue to fight “all terrorists”. He said the bombing also targeted the village of Amarneh.

Military officials said PYD had launched the rockets at two Turkish tanks operating 7 kilometers south of Jarabulus.

The Kurdish Democratic Union Party condemned the attack on the village.

When asked by Daily Sabah whether the coalition would condemn the attacks, the US-led Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) said “What we can say is that we encourage and expect all parties to focus their efforts on Da’esh, and we are working with our Turkish allies and our partnered forces in Syria to ensure that ISIL remains everyone’s focus”.

Most fighting so far has appeared to be with rebels aligned to the Kurdish-backed SDF rather than Islamic State. An activist in the neighborhood of Bebars al-Talawy said there were at least a dozen airstrikes, killing one person. “Most of those killed, initially fled the village of Amarna which was seized by armed groups supported by the Turkish army”, RIA Novosti is quoting a Kurdish source as saying.