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Kurdish militants shell Turkish town, kill 1: Report

This file handout picture, taken and released by Turkey’s Dogan News Agency on January 21, 2018, reportedly shows smoke billowing after rockets hit the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. (Via AFP)

Turkish media say Kurdish militants have fired two rockets from the northern Syrian region of Afrin at a Turkish border town, killing a teenage girl and wounding another person.

Turkey’s state Anadolu news agency said the attack was carried out against the border town of Reyhanli on Wednesday, fatally wounding 17-year-old Fatma Avlar.

Three other people, including two Syrian refugees, have died in similar attacks against Reyhanli and Kilis, another Turkish border town, since Turkey started an incursion against the militants in Afrin on January 20.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey would “cleanse” its entire border with Syria from the presence of militants known as the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The Turkish incursion started after the United States said it sought to set up a thousands-strong force in Syria near the Turkish border comprising the anti-Damascus so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is led by the YPG.

Turkey views the YPG as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) group, which has been fighting a separatist war against Ankara for decades.

Turkey first deployed forces to northern Syria in 2016 to repel the YPG under the banner of “Operation Euphrates Shield.”

Syria views both the Turkish and American military presence on its soil as illegitimate and has said it reserves the right to target the invading forces.

Media reports surfaced on Tuesday, suggesting that the Syrian army has targeted a Turkish military convoy traveling in the Arab country’s northwest with artillery fire.


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