YPG shelling kills Turkish solider in Afrin: reports
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A Turkish soldier was killed in shelling in the Operation Olive Branch area of northern Syria on Sunday, the Turkish Defense Ministry has confirmed.
The solider died when Turkish forces exchanged fire with “terrorists,” the ministry said. Another soldier was wounded.
“Targets belonging to the terrorists were targeted after the event,” the ministry added.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Right, a UK-based war monitor, the attack on Turkish troops was launched by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) – America’s ally in the region against the Islamic State group (ISIS).
Turkish forces responded by firing more than 140 projectiles at YPG positions, the observatory reported.
There was no immediate statement from the YPG. However, Hawar News Agency, media close to the YPG, reported fighting near the village of Maryamia, Shera district.
The Turkish Defense Ministry did not specify where the attack took place, merely referring to the area covered by Operation Olive Branch – the Kurdish-majority canton of Afrin, northwest Syria.
Turkey and its Syrian proxies launched Operation Olive Branch in early 2018 with the stated aim of forcing the YPG back from Turkey’s southern border.
Ankara considers the YPG an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party – an armed group which has fought a decades-long struggle with the Turkish state for greater Kurdish political and cultural rights.
The YPG has repeatedly said it intends to force Turkish troops to withdraw from Afrin once ISIS is defeated in northeast Syria.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of which the YPG makes up the backbone, announced the defeat of ISIS in Syria last week after the group’s last holdout in Baghouz, Deir ez-Zor province, was liberated.
