ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Two Turkish soldiers were killed in northern Syria, Ankara’s defense ministry confirmed late on Saturday night.
The troops were killed in a supposed terror attack on an armed vehicle, with two others injured, the ministry tweeted.
The ministry said the incident took place in the so-called Euphrates Shield region, an area of northwest Syria taken by Turkey and its Syrian proxies during an operation of the same name in 2016.
Turkey struck “terror” targets in retaliation, it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) also reported the death of three Turkish soldiers killed by alleged Kurdish shelling in rural Aleppo.
Ankara considers the People’s Protection Unit (YPG), the backbone of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, to be the Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), seen as a terrorist group in Turkey.
With the support of Syrian proxies, Turkey has conducted three military campaigns in northern Syria in the past several years, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, and now controls Afrin, areas north of Aleppo, and territory in the northeast.
Earlier in July, the SDF announced the death of eight Turkish soldiers killed in retaliatory operations led by the force.
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