DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – At least two militants affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been killed and several others injured as the Turkish military carried out a string of fresh airstrikes against the positions of the militant group in Syria’s northern provinces of Hasakah and Raqqah.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human rights reported that a Turkish combat drone struck a vehicle on Sunday as it was traveling along a road on the outskirts of Qamishli city in Hasakah province.
A high-profile militant affiliated with the US-sponsored and Kurdish-led SDF and his driver were killed in the attack, while three others sustained injuries.
Ambulances rushed to the scene of the aerial assault shortly afterward and transported the injured people to hospitals in the city.
This comes as the Ankara government is making efforts to flush out members of the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militant group from areas close to its border.
An SDF militant was also killed and two others were seriously wounded when a Turkish drone targeted an area east of Ayn Issa town in the Tal Abyad district of Syria’s northern province of Raqqah.
Turkey has deployed forces in Syria in violation of the Arab country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Ankara-backed militants were deployed to northeastern Syria in October 2019 after Turkish military forces launched a long-threatened cross-border invasion in a declared attempt to push members of the YPG, which forms the backbone of the SDF, away from border areas.
Ankara views the YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984.
A day earlier, Syrian government forces killed dozens of al-Nusra Front terrorists in a strike conducted in retaliation for the murder of five soldiers, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.
The Syrian air force targeted positions of al-Nusra Front “in response to a massive drone attack staged by terrorists on positions of Syrian government troops near Salma in the Idlib de-escalation zone which claimed the lives of five Syrian soldiers,” said the deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria.
The retaliatory strike killed 93 militants, including senior commanders, and seriously injured 135 others. It also destroyed a training camp and underground shelters belonging to the terrorists near the settlement of Ashkhani Takhtani.