After the bomb attack in Istanbul, the Turkish government quickly became certain that Kurds from northern Syria gave the order. Now Ankara’s response. The air force flies attacks mainly on the city of Kobane and is said to have killed twelve people, according to an NGO.
Turkey bombed several locations in northern Syria, including the city of Kobane, according to Syrian-Kurdish fighters on Saturday. The Turkish air force had flown several attacks, said a spokesman for the military alliance SDF, which is led by Kurdish units. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least six members of the SDF and six government soldiers were killed. The observatory draws its information from a network of different sources in Syria. The information provided by the organization can often hardly be verified by an independent party.
“Kobane, the city that defeated the Islamic State, is being bombed by the Turkish air force,” said the spokesman for the Kurdish alliance SDF. He also reported attacks on two densely populated towns in the northern Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Al-Hasakah.
The Turkish Ministry of Defense published a photo of a plane taking off in the night with the words “hour of reckoning” on the online service Twitter. Another Twitter message from the ministry said: “The nests of terror are being razed to the ground by precision strikes.” A video shows an explosion after an attack. The ministry did not provide any information on the purpose of the operation.
Earlier this week, Turkey blamed an alleged supporter of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from Syria for an attack in Istanbul that killed six people on Sunday. Accordingly, she is said to have received her instructions in Kobane in the Kurdish region in north-eastern Syria. Both the armed PKK organization and its political wing, as well as the military alliance SDF led by Kurdish YPG units, firmly denied the allegations.
The YPG is backed by the US and played a crucial role in expelling the Islamic State (IS) jihadist militia from Syria and also from Kobane. Turkey, on the other hand, accuses the YPG of being an offshoot of the PKK and therefore also classifies it as “terrorist”. Turkey has been trying for years to set up a “buffer zone” in the Kurdish area on its border with Syria and to expel the Kurdish units from there.
