DAMASCUS (Anadolu/ Al Jazeera) – The death toll from a missile strike in Syria’s northwestern town of al-Bab on Friday has climbed to 14, according to reports from the ground.
Children are among the fatalities in the strike, which targeted a part of the town with heavy civilian presence.
At least 37 more people have been injured.
There has been no claim of responsibility so far.
Turkey has launched three major cross-border incursions into Syria since 2016 and controls some territories in the north.
Although the fighting has waned over the past few years, shelling and airstrikes are not uncommon in northern Syria that is home to the last major militant stronghold in the country.
The foreign-backed war in Syria that began in 2011 has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.
The attack in the town, which is held by Turkey-backed opposition groups in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo, came days after an air attack killed Syrian troops and United States-backed Kurdish militants in Aleppo. The Syrian government blamed Turkey for the attack.
A video shared on social media purportedly of the immediate aftermath of the attack showed pools of blood on the ground along with scattered bread and overturned fruit and vegetable boxes.
Al Jazeera could not independently verify the video.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey does not seek the removal of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
“We don’t have such an issue whether to defeat Assad or not,” he told journalists accompanying him on a trip to Ukraine.
“All the steps we have taken with Russians in northern Syria and the east and west of the Euphrates, there is a fight against terrorism.”
After a week of speculation that normalization with the Syrian president’s government may be on the cards, Erdogan said Turkey will need to take “higher steps” with Damascus to end the “games” being played in the region.
He added that Turkey cannot totally cut off diplomatic relations with the Syrian government.
“You have to accept that you cannot cut the political dialogue and diplomacy between the states,” he said. “There should always be such dialogues.”