Turkey: Turkey launches strikes on Syria after 8 Turkish soldiers are killed
Turkey has launched ground and air attacks on Syrian troops after eight military personnel were shelled and killed in the north of the war-torn country, jeopardizing the Turkish leader President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fragile security pact with Syria’s main ally, Russia.
“Those who test the determination of Turkey with such cowardly attacks will understand they are making a grave mistake,” Mr. Erdogan told Turkish television in Istanbul before flying out on a scheduled visit to Ukraine.
The Turkish soldiers killed Monday were in Idlib province, in Syria’s northwest, near the border with Turkey, where Ankara has stationed troops at 12 observation posts. Mr. Erdogan’s government forged a cease-fire agreement with Russia in September 2018 in a bid to prevent a military offensive that could send more than three million civilians there streaming across the border to Turkey. Turkey already hosts millions of Syrian refugees and the government is trying to send many of them back.