ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Syrian Kurdish forces announced they hit a police station across the border with Turkey as the war between the two enters its fourth day.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced early Saturday that their forces targeted a police station inside Turkey from Kobane in northern Syria. This is the SDF’s first reported cross-border attack since fighting broke out, and they killed five Turkish soldiers, according to the group.
“Shelling between SDF and the Turkish army in the eastern countryside of Kobani SDF kill five Turkish soldiers and destroy a police station on the Turkish side,“ read a tweet from the SDF.
police station on the Turkish side. pic.twitter.com/VZT24emmzF
— Coordination & Military Ops Center - SDF (@cmoc_sdf) October 11, 2019
The SDF did not elaborate on whether the killing of the soldiers and the destruction of the police station happened in the same attack.
The Turkish Army and its Syrian rebel proxies launched Operation Peace Spring against the SDF on Wednesday after appearing to get a green light from US President Donald Trump, who pulled American troops back from two outposts on the Turkey-Syria border.
Turkey considers the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) - which is the backbone of the multi-ethnic SDF - in northern Syria to be a terrorist organization, and Ankara repeatedly threatened a military incursion to push them away from the border and establish a “safe zone” up to 30 kilometers deep.
Turkish media have previously reported several SDF attacks on civilians on the Turkish side of Turkey-Syria border in the majority Kurdish Mardin and Sanliurfa provinces. However, they have not reported any attacks on Turkish security forces inside the country.
Eight “civilians” were killed and 35 injured in the Nusaybin district of Mardin as a result of mortar and rocket attacks by the Kurdish forces in northern Syria, reported the state-owned Anadolu Agency (AA) on Friday.
Earlier in the day, two more “civilians” killed and two other injured in Suruc district in Sanliurfa, according to AA.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Friday that 12 Turkish border guards were killed and injured by the SDF after Turkish forces attacked the Kurdish group in Kobane.
The UK-based and pro-Syrian opposition watchdog said earlier in the day that the death toll among the SDF is 54, and the Operation Peace Spring forces is 42, including six Turkish soldiers, since fighting began.
