Turkish soldier killed in Syria

Syrian activists say government airplanes have attacked a besieged neighborhood in the central city of Homs, including with incendiary bombs that killed two children and left one badly burned. Fighting has also continued between Turkey-backed rebel groups and a US -backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab forces known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkey sent tanks and troops into Syria on Wednesday to support its Syrian rebel allies.

Ankara said it had killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” and insisted the army was doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties.

Four local fighters were also killed, the Observatory reported. They have also moved west towards Islamic State areas.

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

That latest fighting came after suspected Kurdish fighters launched rockets at an airport in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir.

“We are as determined about the PYD, the separatist terror organization’s Syrian wing”, he said.

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

But most fighting so far has appeared to be with rebels aligned to the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a broad grouping that includes the YPG, rather than Isis. In general, those U.S. special operations forces have close contact with their Turkish counterparts, and they rely on Turkey for their rear supply lines, according to people familiar with the situation.

Aided by US-led coalition airstrikes, the YPG has been the most effective group so far in restricting the advance of IS in Syria.

Turkey’s concerns about Kurdish expansion grew after the SDF drove the Islamic State from Manbij this month and then began pushing north toward Jarabulus.

Turkey said the dead were 25 “terrorists” from the YPG and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), state-run Anadolu news agency said.

An SDF spokesman Shervan Darwish said the air strikes and shelling started overnight and continued into Sunday killing many civilians in the town and nearby areas.

He said the bombing also targeted Amarneh village and that 50 Turkish tanks had been involved in the offensive.

Still, Turkey’s notorious hostility toward all things Kurdish had numerous locals taking up arms to resist the takeover of their villages, and the Turkish-backed rebels, mostly the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham force, engaged in heavy fighting with the population before ultimately occupying both villages.

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

The Observatory said rebels backed by Turkish tanks fought until dawn against rival militias allied to the SDF around al-Amarna.