ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a partnered ground force of the US-led international anti-ISIS Coalition, has called for a no-fly zone over northern Syria after a week of increased attacks and skirmishes between YPG and Turkish forces.
Redur Xelil and the group launched a social media campaign calling for a no-fly zone for Rojava after Turkey struck fighters on Mount Qara Shouk on Tuesday. There also have been skirmishes reported by Turkish and YPG media near the Syrian town of Darbasiyah, which borders Turkey.
“[A no-fly zone] is the only solution for the lives of millions of Syrian people to be put under protection against future Turkish attacks,” YPG announced.
“Twenty of our fighters were killed and 18 more injured as a result of the Turkish airstrikes,” Xelil said on Tuesday, referring to the Qara Shouk strikes.
A road follows the mountain ridge west from the Iraqi border through Qara Shouk. It then intersects with a north-south road connecting the Turkish city of Cizre to the Kurdish enclave of Rojava in northern Syria.
Turkey, also a Coalition member, maintains that YPG and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are one in the same, and that PKK fighters use the mountainous border regions to infiltrate their country and fuel their decades-long guerrilla war against the Turkish government.
The Turkish military has “retaliated” to a rocket attack on a Turkish border post, the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News reported, adding that the army said it had killed 11 militants.
A previous statement, reported on by Hurriyet, said 11 border posts had been subjected to 13 attacks from areas controlled by YPG.
The US-led international anti-ISIS coalition has been backing its partnered Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the ground. The SDF is primarily comprised of the multi-ethnic YPG and the Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC).
A no-fly zone “will help keep millions alive and a stable north Syria is a stable regional situation,” the YPG statement added on Wednesday. “[The] Turkish army continues shelling Dirbesiye after assaults earlier on today, increasing military presence at the border.”
The SDF is about to recapture Tabqa Dam from ISIS, and has been isolating Raqqa.
The spokesperson for the Coalition was asked during a teleconference with British journalists about this week’s attacks against its partnered forces.
"The Syrian Democratic Forces have reported a significant number of their fighters have also been attacked," US Col. John Dorrian said on Thursday, putting the number of “stalwart” partner forces killed or wounded this week in Syria “somewhere around the order of 50.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) cited “reliable sources” confirming “28 casualties … all of them were killed in the strikes that took place dawn of April 25.”
SOHR added that the strikes were in the “Qarrah Jokh” area. It separately reported “20 injured persons and some of them are still in critical condition, which may raise the death toll.”
The US hasn’t yet asked for a no-fly zone, which took a United Nations Security Council Resolution when implemented over what is now the Kurdistan Region north of Iraq. The US-led Coalition has maintained a de-confliction channel with Russia, and coordinated with partners.
"There was less than an hour of notification time before the strikes were conducted. That's not enough time," Dorrian said, referring to Turkey.
“We didn’t have exact fidelity on where the strikes would occur and not an enormous amount of time to have our forces react,” he said, adding US forces in Syria were less than 10 kilometers from the target zone on Tuesday.
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