Three civilians killed by Turkish air strike in northeastern Syria

Three civilians were killed on Saturday when a Turkish drone struck a car in northeastern Syria.

According to the Kurdish-led security force, Turkish forces targeted a car with a drone strike on a road between al-Hawl and Tal Brak in Hasakeh province.

A drone attack on a car in northeastern Syria attributed to the Turkish military has killed three civilians, a media report and Kurdish security forces said on Saturday.

“This crime is one of a series of flagrant violations of international law and human rights which forbid the targeting of civilians,” said the Asayish security services.

The attack was the latest by Turkey on the Kurdish-led administration in northeastern Syria, which is dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their US-backed affiliate, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

It came a day after two Kurdish journalists from Turkey were killed by another strike while covering clashes between the SDF and the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA).

Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Dastan were killed by the strike outside the Kurdish-held Syrian border town of Kobane, with the YPG describing it as part of a wider plan to “destroy the democratic and revolutionary governance model” established in northeastern Syria.

Following the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on 8 December, Turkey has pushed its offensive against the SDF and YPG, which it sees as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an organisation that has fought with Turkey since 1984.

On Saturday, war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced the deaths of 14 Turkey-backed fighters in “fierce fighting” with the SDF.

A Turkish defence ministry source told AFP on Thursday they would keep up the attack on the SDF until they “disarm”.

‘Slip of the tongue’

There are also growing concerns over a possible Turkish assault on Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, which the YPG captured from the Islamic State (IS) group in 2015.

It helped precipitate a fightback against IS, who had captured much of Syria and Iraq, and helped cement the backing of the US for the Kurdish-led groups in their fight against IS.

“Our relationship with the international coalition, headed by the US, is a continuous relationship that goes back years,” Siyamend Ali, head of the YPG press office, told Middle East Eye last week.

“The work with the international coalition, especially against IS, is the same as before. The military deployment of the coalition is also the same as it was.”

The SDF has attempted to use its ongoing relationship with the US to pressure Turkey over its attack on their forces.

However, an announced ceasefire by the US State Department earlier this week in the city of Manbij was dismissed by Turkey, which said it was “out of the question” to negotiate with the Kurdish groups and said the US statement must have been a “slip of the tongue”.