Two killed as volley of rockets strike Turkish border towns

 At least two people have been killed and several other injured after a barrage of rockets from Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northwestern region of Afrin struck two Turkish border towns, officials say.

The Hatay governor's office said in a statement that at least six rockets targeted the town of Reyhanli in Hatay province on Friday.

The attack wounded at least 18 people, two of whom later died in hospital, it added. The assault also damaged a home, a workplace and a road close to the marketplace.

Meanwhile, Governor Mehmet Tekinarslan said that at least three more rockets struck the town of Kilis, northeast of Reyhanli, where at least three people were wounded.

Several rockets have hit the Turkish border towns of Kilis and Reyhanli in recent days as Ankara presses ahead with its operation against US-backed Kurdish militants in the war-torn Arab country.

Friday's deaths have raised to six the death toll in a salvo of rocket attacks on the two towns since January 20. The victims include a teenage girl and two Syrian refugees.

In recent days, Turkey has arrested more than 300 people for social media posts criticizing its military offensive against US-backed Kurdish militants in Syria's northwestern region of Afrin. 

The Interior Ministry said on Monday that a total of 311 people, including politicians, journalists and activists, had been detained for "spreading terrorist propaganda" on social media over the last 10 days.

PressTV-Turkey detains hundreds over criticism of Syrian op

Turkish authorities have warned they would prosecute those opposing, criticizing or misrepresenting the cross-border incursion.

Turkey launched the so-called Operation Olive Branch in Afrin five days ago in a bid to eliminate the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as a terror organization and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The YPG forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed anti-Damascus militant group.

The Turkish military said in a statement on Tuesday that at least 260 members of the YPG and the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group had been killed in the Afrin operation. The SDF has also claimed to kill dozens of Turkish forces and allied Free Syrian Army members.

Operation Olive Branch in the Afrin region is Turkey's second major military intervention in Syria during an unprecedented foreign-backed militancy that broke out in 2011.

In August 2016, Turkey began a unilateral military intervention in northern Syria, code-named Operation Euphrates Shield, sending tanks and warplanes across the border. Ankara claimed that its military campaign was aimed at pushing Daesh from Turkey's border with Syria and stopping the advance of Kurdish forces, who were themselves fighting Daesh.  

Turkey ended its campaign in northern Syria in March 2017, but at the time did not rule out the possibility of yet another act of military offensive inside the Arab country.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk