Turkey continues drone strikes in northern Aleppo: SOHR

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Saturday that a Turkish drone strike targeted a location in Tal Rifaat in northern Aleppo, where both Kurdish and Syrian government forces are present.

The area experiences frequent artillery shelling between Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish forces.

The area around Tal Rifaat also hosts a large number of civilians displaced from Afrin, a northwestern Syrian-Kurdish region Turkey and its proxy Syrian militants invaded in 2018.

Recently, Turkish shelling and drone strikes have increased in northeastern Syria since Oct. 5, after Turkey blamed a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) attack in Ankara on two fighters coming from Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have denied the fighters came from Syria.

The Turkish strikes targeted vital electricity, oil and water infrastructure.

According to the latest report of the Syria-based Rojava Information Centre (RIC), over 48 people were killed, including 29 members of the Asayish, by the Turkish air and drone strikes. 

The RIC report added that infrastructure for electricity, water, cooking gas, and oil have been completely destroyed across the region.

The SOHR also reported that the residents of the city of Qamishlo are suffering from the ongoing interruption of electricity and water following the Turkish airstrikes.

Moreover, another SOHR report said that a Syrian soldier on Saturday died from his injuries sustained in yesterday’s Turkish shelling on Syrian government forces on the Sheikh Eissa village in northern Aleppo, near Tal Rifaat.

The death toll is likely to increase due to the critical condition of two other Syrian soldiers receiving treatment in Aleppo’s hospitals.