| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Kurd forces pound Turkish positions with artillery in Afrin |
| 2017-04-13 |
| [ARA News] Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) have targeted positions of the Turkish army on the Syrian-Turkish border with heavy artillery, military sources reported on Thursday. “A main military base for the Turkish army in northern Syria was hit by YPG fire,” the YPG media office told ARA News. “The operation came in response to the recent Turkish attacks on Kurdish villages in Afrin district [northwest of Aleppo],” the source reported. At least two Turkish military vehicles were destroyed and several soldiers were killed in the attack, according to Kurdish officials. Turkey’s military forces launched an offensive on the Kurdish district of Afrin in Syria’s northwestern Aleppo Governorate two weeks ago, killing and wounding dozens of civilians, eyewitnesses and officials told ARA News. The Turkish Army had initiated the offensive by shelling the villages of Malla Khalil and Der Ballout in the Jinderis area of Afrin. Several houses were destroyed and dozens of civilians were killed or injured during the attack. Also, Turkey’s military hit with heavy artillery the Kurdish villages of Ferferk and Qere Baba in the Rajou area in Afrin District. Furthermore, the villages of Anqala and Khalil in the Kurdish Shiya area were also exposed to artillery shelling by the Turkish troops. “The barbaric Turkish attacks on the Kurdish villages of Afrin caused dozens of casualties among civilians, many of them were women and children,” a local human rights activist told ARA News. “The Erdogan-led thugs [Turkish forces] launched simultaneous attacks on all these villages in Afrin, with the ultimate goal of killing as many Kurds as possible. The world should witness this and take action to prevent more massacres by the Turkish dictator,” a Kurdish activist said. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) has repeatedly vowed to respond to the Turkish attacks on Rojava–Syrian Kurdistan. “We strongly condemn these massacres against the Kurdish people in Afrin, and we will respond by force,” the YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said in a statement in March. |
| Posted by:badanov |