Turkey ‘Neutralizes’ 58 Kurdish Militants in Northern Syria

Date: 07 October 2023 - 22:27

News ID: ۱۲۰۰۰۹

ANKARA (Reuters) –
Turkish forces have “neutralized” 58 Kurdish militants in northern Syria in overnight attacks on militant targets, the Defence Ministry said on Saturday, as conflict in the region escalated nearly a week after a bomb attack in Ankara.
Turkey this week said all targets belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militia and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia were “legitimate targets” for its forces, after the PKK claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing in Ankara which wounded two police officers and killed the two attackers.
Turkey said the attackers came from Syria but the Syrian SDF forces denied this. Since the bomb attack, Ankara has launched a barrage of air strikes and attacks against militant targets in northern Syria and Iraq, while ramping up security operations at home.
“Targets belonging to PKK/YPG terrorists in northern Syria’s Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch, and Peace Spring operation areas were hit strongly all night long,” the ministry said, referring to regions where Turkey has previously mounted operations.
The ministry said the operations, which it says are carried out under self-defence rights, had “neutralized” 58 militants in the region. Ankara typically uses the term “neutralized” to mean killed.
Late on Friday, the ministry had said Turkey’s military had conducted air strikes in northern Syria, destroying 15 militant targets where it said militants were believed to be.
Speaking at his ruling AK Party’s congress in Ankara on Saturday, President Tayyip Erdogan repeated his warning that Turkey “may suddenly come one night”, a term he has often used to target militants in Syria and Iraq.
“We will implement our strategy of ending terror at its root with determination, and hold the PKK, FETO, and Daesh to account over every drop of blood they have spilled,” he said, referring to the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed coup attempt in July 2016.
Turkey lists the YPG as a terrorist organization and says it is indistinguishable from the PKK, which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
The United States and European Union deem the PKK a terrorist organization, but not the YPG.