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On May 4, the Turkish Ministry of National Defenses said that an officer of the Turkish Armed Forces was killed in an attack in the northern Syrian area of Afrin.
The ministry identified the slain officer as Lt. Talha Bahadır without providing any details on the attack that claimed his life.
Syrian opposition sources reported two attacks by Kurdish forces on the Turkish military in Afrin on May 3 and 4. An attack with indirect fire targeted a Turkish position in the outskirts of the town of Kaljibrin. Later, an attack with an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) targeted a Turkish military vehicle near the town of Kimar. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Turkish officer was killed in the second attack.
The Turkish military responded to the attacks with a series of artillery strikes that targeted areas held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northern Aleppo countryside. The Turkish Ministry of National Defense claimed that 24 Kurdish fighters were “neutralized”. However, Syrian sources didn’t report any losses.
Lt. Bahadır was the second Turkish service member to be killed by Kurdish forces in Syria in less than two weeks. On April 22, police officer Aytac Altinors was killed when the Afrin Liberation Forces (ALF), an affiliate of the SDF, targeted a Turkish military vehicle near the town of Marea in the northern countryside of Aleppo with ATGMs.
The ALF have been fairly active in Afrin and other Turkish-occupied areas in the northern Aleppo countryside. On May 3, the Kurdish group released a video documenting one of several attacks it carried out against Turkish-backed militants between April 23 and 30. The Kurdish guerilla group claimed that 14 militants were killed and two others were wounded as a result of the attacks.
The Turkish military and its proxies may intensify their operations against Kurdish forces in northern and northeastern Syria in response to the recent attacks.
Kurdish forces are likely attempting to deter Ankara, who has been reportedly preparing to launch a new large-scale military operation in Syria.
