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Turkey’s prime minister said Saturday that Turkish troops have captured a strategic village in a Kurdish-held enclave in northwestern Syria, tightening its grip on Kurdish forces in the sixth week of its offensive on the area.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the Kurdish Afrin district has been “surrounded” by the military, special police and paramilitary forces, as well as allied Syrian opposition fighters.
On Friday night, the militants used heavy artillery (122, 152-mm) to attack the Ukrainian Army in Donbass, according to the Ukrainian Army HQ.
“In Luhansk sector, at around 21:00, the enemy shelled the strongholds of Ukrainian soldiers in Donbass with Minsk-banned weapons - artillery of 122-mm calibre,” the report says.
Turkey warned on Monday it would confront Syrian government forces if they entered Syria’s northwestern Afrin region to help the Kurdish YPG militia repel a Turkish offensive.
Turkey began its Afrin operation with allied Syrian rebels last month against the YPG, which Ankara sees as a threat along its border with links to the Kurdish PKK insurgency at home.
The Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have claimed that 16 Turkish troops have been captured since the beginning of fierce military clashes between the sides last Saturday.
A YPG spokesperson cited by Sputnik, also said “the militiamen lost four people”.
Turkey on Friday started fresh shelling of the Syrian town of Afrin in a move to oust a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers “terrorists” and vowed to press on with a full-scale operation against them.
The Turkish government has repeatedly warned it will strike Syrian towns controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, including Afrin, after the US said it was training a 30,000-strong border force there.