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Turkey shelling Syria Kurdish fighters in Aleppo: YPG

Tanks stationed at a Turkish army position near the Oncupinar crossing gate close to the town of Kilis, south central Turkey, fire towards the Syria border, on February 16, 2016. (AFP photo)

A Syrian Kurdish official says Turkey has fired artillery shells at Kurdish fighters in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo.

Redur Xelil, an official from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, also known as YPG, said on Monday that the Turkish army’s shells hit Tal Rif'at town in Aleppo.

A number of Kurdish fighters were injured in the attack, Xelil added.

On Saturday, YPG said Turkish tanks targeted its members in Qamishli city near the Turkish border. The group also said that the shelling triggered clashes between the two sides and that one of its members was seriously wounded.

Turkish shells also hit Kurdish positions in northwest Syria on Friday, YPG also noted.

Ankara accuses Syrian Kurdish group Democratic Union Party, also known as the PYD, and its military wing the YPG of having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group that has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s.

The YPG, which is nearly in control of Syria’s entire northern border with Turkey, has been fighting against Daesh.

Angered by the rapid advance of Syrian Kurdish fighters in areas near the Turkish border, Ankara shelled their positions inside Syria last month.

Also on Monday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov urged world powers to react to Turkey’s shelling of Kurdish fighters in Syria.

The Russian defense Ministry also said in a statement that eight ceasefire violations, two in Hama, three in Aleppo and three in Idlib, had been registered in Syria over the past 24 hours.

The ceasefire has been in place since February 27. The truce was brokered by the United States and Russia. It does not cover areas of the country that are under the control of the Daesh Takfiri terrorists as well as the al-Qaeda–affiliated al-Nusra Front.


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