Russia jets kill 3 Turkey soldiers in N Syria

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - On Thursday an airstrike by a Russian warplane killed at least three Turkish soldiers and wounded eleven others who were fighting the Islamic State (IS) group in northern Syria.

A statement by Turkish General Staff said the Russian jet "mistakenly" hit a building occupied by the soldiers in the morning hours without specifying where the incident occurred.

The army said Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his condolences and apologies for the "mistake" to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Speaking to the Russian state-operated RIA Novosti, the Kremlin press secretary of Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Putin called Erdogan over the phone.

This is the second time Turkish loses soldiers to an airstrike of an ally. A Syrian regime warplane killed three in November.

Turkish forces and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions they back have been trying to capture the northern Aleppo town of al-Bab for the last four months.

The killing of Turkish troops by a Russian jet came amid a geostrategic rush between Turkey and the Syrian regime army to capture al-Bab and deny the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) the control of the town to link Kurdish-administered area of Afrin with Manbij.

Russia has backed both armies with airstrikes in their operations in the region.

With the latest casualties the number of Turkish soldiers killed in the last two days of the campaign dubbed "Operation Euphrates Shield" rose to 13.

Ten Turkish soldiers were killed in separate IS attack in the last 48 hours, making the total toll 72 since late August 2016.

Euphrates Shield began only after Erdogan apologized to Putin over the Turkish shootdown of a Russian jet on the border with Syria in late 2015.

The warming relations between the two sides did not falter even when the Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was shot dead by a Turkish police officer in December 2016.

Editing by Ava Homa