QAMISHLI, Syria (AP) — Turkey intensified its airstrikes against Kurdish groups in Syria and northern Iraq in retaliation for the deaths of 12 Turkish soldiers in Iraq over the weekend.
The Turkish defense ministry said in a statement Monday that it had killed at least 26 militants in the strikes.
In northeast Syria, at least eight civilians were killed in Turkish airstrikes Monday, including two women, Farhad Shami, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based war monitor, said 12 others were wounded.
Turkey has carried out 128 strikes in northeast Syria in 2023, killing 94 people, according to the Observatory.
On Friday, Turkish officials said militants affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s, attempted to infiltrate a Turkish base in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. They said six Turkish soldiers were killed in the ensuing firefight. The following day, six more Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes with Kurdish militants.
In response, Ankara launched strikes on dozens of sites it said were associated with the PKK in Iraq and Syria.
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