Tag: Syria

US jet shoots down Turkish drone in Syria – Pentagon

The United States on Thursday shot down an armed Turkish drone that was operating near its troops in Syria, the Pentagon said, the first time Washington has brought down an aircraft of NATO ally Turkey.

Smoke rises from a car after an alleged Turkish strike on Hasakah, Syria, October 5, 2023. North Press Agency/via REUTERS Acquire Licensing Rights

A Turkish defense ministry official said the drone that was shot down did not belong to the Turkish armed forces, but did not say whose property it was.

Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency carried out strikes in Syria against Kurdish militant targets after a bomb attack in Ankara last weekend, a Turkish security source said on Thursday.

On Thursday night, Turkish military air strikes destroyed 30 Kurdish militant targets in northern Syria, including an oil well, a storage facility and shelters, and “neutralised” many militants, the Turkish defence ministry said.

Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said Turkish drones had been seen carrying out airstrikes in Hasakah, Syria, on Thursday morning about 1 km away from U.S. troops. A few hours later a Turkish drone came within less than a half a kilometer (0.3 miles) of U.S. troops and was deemed a threat and shot down by F-16 aircraft.

“We have no indication that the Turkey was intentionally targeting U.S. forces,” Ryder told reporters.

Hasakah is in northeastern Syria and the mainly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) is the spearhead of the main ally of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, also called Daesh.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Turkish counterpart, a call Ryder said was “fruitful.”

The Turkish Defense Ministry said on social media platform X that its minister Yasar Guler had told Austin that “Turkey is ready for a joint fight with the USA against Daesh.”

“Both Ministers emphasized the importance of close coordination of U.S. and Turkish elements in activities carried out in the region,” it added.

U.S.-Turkish relations are in a delicate moment, with the United States hoping Turkey will ratify NATO membership for Sweden.

While the United States has not shot down a Turkish aircraft before, tensions have flared and there have been close calls. In 2019, U.S. troops in northern Syria came under artillery fire from Turkish positions.

The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown, spoke with his Turkish counterpart and discussed “the need to follow common deconfliction protocols to ensure the safety of our personnel in Syria,” the U.S. military said in a statement.

TURKEY STRIKES IN SYRIA
U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish forces said Turkish attacks had killed eight people since the bomb attack in Ankara by Kurdish militants.

U.S. support for Kurdish forces in northern Syria has long caused tension with Turkey, which views them as a wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). That group claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack in Ankara near government buildings.

On Wednesday, Turkey said the two attackers had come from Syria. The bombing killed both attackers and wounded two police officers. The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led force backed by the United States, denied that the bombers had passed through its territory.

On Thursday, a Turkish defense ministry official said a ground operation into Syria was one option that Turkey could consider. Turkey has mounted several previous incursions into northern Syria against the Syrian Kurdish YPG group.

“Our only goal is to eliminate the terrorist organizations that pose a threat to Turkey. A ground operation is one of the options to eliminate this threat, but it is not the only option for us,” the official said.

Security forces in northeastern Syria said Turkey launched a series of attacks on Thursday with more than 15 drones entering the region’s airspace and hitting targets including infrastructure and gas and oil stations. In a statement, the security forces said Turkish attacks killed six members of the internal security forces in northeastern Syria, and two civilians in two separate strikes.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/turkish-officials-says-ground-operation-into-syria-an-option-after-bombing-2023-10-05/

Drone attack kills 80 and wounds 240 at a packed Syrian military graduation ceremony, official says

A drone attack hit a crowded military graduation ceremony Thursday in the Syrian city of Homs, killing 80 people and wounding 240, the health minister said, in one of the deadliest recent attacks on an army that’s been fighting a civil war for more than a decade.

The strike killed civilians, including six children, as well as military personnel, and there were concerns the death toll could rise as many of the wounded were in serious condition, Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabash said.

Syria’s military said in an earlier statement that drones laden with explosives targeted the ceremony packed with young officers and their families as it was wrapping up. Without naming any particular group, the military accused insurgents “backed by known international forces” of the attack and said “it will respond with full force and decisiveness to these terrorist organizations, wherever they exist.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack as Syria endures its 13th year of conflict.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “expressed deep concern” about the drone attack in Homs as well as reports of retaliatory shelling in northwest Syria, his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. Guterres condemned all violence and called for a nationwide cease-fire, the spokesperson added.

The military did not provide any casualty numbers, but Syria’s state television said the government announced a three-day state of mourning starting Friday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, and the pro-government Sham FM radio station reported the strikes earlier.

Syria’s crisis started with peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad’s government in March 2011 but quickly morphed into a full-blown civil war after the government’s brutal crackdown on the protesters. The tide turned in Assad’s favor against rebel groups in 2015, when Russia provided key military backing to Syria, as well as Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

So far, the war has killed half a million people, wounded hundreds of thousands and destroyed many parts of the country. It has displaced half of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million, including more than 5 million who are refugees outside Syria.

Although most Arab governments have restored ties with the government in Damascus, Syria remains divided, with a northwest enclave under the control of al-Qaida-linked militants from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group and Turkish-backed opposition fighters. The country’s northeast is under control of U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The city of Homs is deep in government-held territory, far from front lines where government and rebel forces routinely skirmish.

After the drone attack, Syrian government forces shelled villages in Idlib province, in the northwest. At least 10 civilians were wounded in the towns of Al-Nayrab and Sarmin east of Idlib city, according to opposition-held northwestern Syria’s civil defense organization known as the White Helmets. Government forces continue to shell other areas in the enclave.

The Syrian army shelled another village in the region earlier Thursday before the drone attack over Homs, killing at least five civilians, activists and emergency workers said. The shelling hit a family house on the outskirts of the the village of Kafr Nouran in western Aleppo province, according to the White Helmets.

A woman and four of her children were killed, according to the Observatory. Nine other members of the family were wounded, it said.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/northwestern-syria-airstrikes-killed-rebels-russia-1de0a6b1572827dae766a6ba14fc7ac4

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