File image.
Early on November 20, the Turkish Ministry of National Defence said that it carried out airstrikes on Kurdish forces in northern Syria and northern Iraq.
In a statement, the ministry said that the airstrikes targeted bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which it said were used to carry out attacks on Turkey.
Turkey considers the YPG, the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to be an extension of the outlawed PKK.
The airstrikes were a direct response to the November 13 bombing that killed six people and injured more than 80 others in the İstiklal Avenue of Turkey’s Istanbul. Ankara blamed the attack on the PKK and the YPG, who rejected these accusations.
“The hour of reckoning has come,” the Turkish defence ministry tweeted after the beginning of the airstrikes, adding that those who had perpetrated the “treacherous attacks” would be held accountable.
The ministry said it was using “precision strikes” to destroy “terrorist hotbeds” in another tweet that was accompanied by a video showing a target being hit.
In northern Syria, Turkish airstrikes targeted SDF-held areas in Aleppo, Raqqa and al-Hasakah, including the town of Kabani, the main stronghold of the Kurdish-led group.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that six fighters of the SDF and six service members of the Syrian Arab Army, who is deployed in Kurdish-held areas to oversee a ceasefire brokered by Russia in 2019, were killed in the Turkish airstrikes. These numbers are yet to be verified, however.
“This bombing is not in favor of any party,” SDF leader Mazloum Abdi, said on Twitter. “We are making every effort not to cause a major catastrophe, but if war breaks out, everyone will be affected by its results.”
In northern Iraq, several parts of the Kurdistan region were reportedly struck, including PKK strongholds in the Qandil Mountains. No casualties have been reported, so far.
Around 48 hours earlier, the United States Consulate General in Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, issued a security alert warning American citizens of a near Turkish military operation in northern Iraq and northern Syria. This suggests that Washington had advanced knowledge of Ankara’s military plans.
The Turkish airstrikes will likely lead to more tensions, especially if the reports of Syrian military casualties are true. Ankara is apparently planning to escalate against the SDF in northern Syria. Damascus has already warned against such a move.
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