On November 21, 2022, Syrian Kurds attend a burial for victims of Turkish bombings in the hamlet of Al Malikiyah in northern Syria. Baderkhan Ahmad/AP
Qamishli, Syria — Tuesday, a Turkish drone strike targeted a Kurdish and U.S.-led coalition facility in northeast Syria, according to the Kurds and a war monitor. Two members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were killed, according to an SDF spokesman, but according to U.S. Central Command, no American forces were present or in danger.
“A Turkish drone has struck a joint facility north of Hasakeh utilized for planning and executing cooperative operations against the Islamic State group (ISIS),” SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami told AFP.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, headquartered in the United Kingdom, has reported that two SDF members were killed.
According to the U.S. military’s Central Command, U.S. personnel “were not in threat” during the hit.
The closest strike happened around 12-18 miles away from U.S. soldiers, according to Centcom.
People check a spot destroyed by Turkish airstrikes that struck an electrical facility in the Syrian town of Taql Baql in the province of Hassakeh on November 20, 2022. Baderkhan Ahmad/AP
Colonel Joe Buccino, spokesperson for Centcom, stated, “We oppose any military action that destabilizes the situation in Syria.”
“These actions jeopardize our shared objectives, particularly the ongoing war against ISIS to guarantee that the group can never resurge and harm the region,” he added.
Since Turkey launched a new air campaign against Kurdish rebel groups across Iraq and Syria on Sunday — some of which are linked to militias on which the U.S. military has relied heavily as allies during its own operations in Iraq and Syria — Ankara has come under enormous pressure from Washington to delay a long-awaited ground operation into Syria.
Ned Price, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said late Monday, “We encourage a de-escalation in Syria to safeguard civilian life and further the common objective of destroying ISIS.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become increasingly defiant in response to U.S. threats, declaring on Tuesday that the air campaign will be “soon” followed by a land attack.
Erdogan stated in a televised address, “We have been on top of terrorists for a few days with our jets, artillery, and drones.” God willing, we will soon eradicate them with our tanks, artillery, and troops.
The air attacks, dubbed Operation Claw-Sword, followed a bombing in Istanbul that killed six people and injured 81. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is classed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, has denied involvement for the attack.
Explosion in Istanbul, Turkey claims the lives of at least six people around 00:15
In Syria, the primary focus of the Turkish assault is the People’s Protection Units (YPG), who dominate the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). During its successful military effort to drive ISIS from Syrian territory, Washington formed a strong partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but Ankara views it as a terrorist organization linked to the PKK.
Erdogan stated on Tuesday, in a veiled allusion to Washington, that his administration understood “who shelters, weapons, and promotes these terrorists.”
“Those who believe they can keep Turkey waiting by fiddling with letters and altering the name of the terrorist group have reached a dead end,” he stated.
The primarily Kurdish-populated regions of eastern Turkey, northern Syria and Iraq, and western Iran are depicted in yellow on a map. Getty/iStockphoto
Iran, a neighbor of Turkey, has also intensified its operations on Kurdish organizations stationed in Iraq, close over Turkey’s southern border. Iran started additional cross-border missile and drone attacks against Iranian-Kurdish opposition organizations headquartered in the semi-autonomous Kurdish area of northern Iraq on Tuesday.
Tehran has accused separatist organizations of fueling the unprecedented surge of anti-government demonstrations sweeping the Islamic Republic. More than two months of social unrest in Iran have been ignited by the murder of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s stringent dress code for women.
01:53 An Iranian court convicts demonstrators to death, with hundreds more awaiting trial.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “launched a new series of attacks against terrorist groups stationed in the Iraqi Kurdistan area,” according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency. These are the second such attacks in two days.
According to the allegation, the Kurdistan Freedom Party headquarters in Kirkuk was “struck by missiles and suicide drones.” AFP was informed by an Iraqi Kurdish military official, a local police officer, and a party spokeswoman that attacks on the region had resumed.
“We had taken preparations and evacuated the building, therefore there were no injuries,” Khalil Nadri, a spokesperson for the Kurdistan Freedom Party, told AFP.
Lawk Ghafuri, a spokesperson for the Kurdistan regional administration, stated on Twitter: “Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran fired rockets at Iranian opposition organizations in two regions of the Kurdistan region.”
The United States expresses its deepest regrets for the civilian deaths in Syria and Turkey. We advocate de-escalation in Syria in order to safeguard civilian lives and further the shared objective of eliminating ISIS. We continue to reject any military action in Iraq that is not coordinated. https://t.co/42eTcZN0MM
November 22, 2022 — Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox)
In a statement released on Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Price conveyed the administration of Vice President Joe Biden’s “sincere regrets for the loss of civilian lives in Syria and Turkey.”
“We encourage de-escalation in Syria to safeguard civilian lives and advance the common objective of destroying ISIS,” he said, adding that the U.S. opposes “any uncoordinated military action in Iraq that breaches Iraq’s sovereignty.”
Since the 1980s, Iraqi Kurdistan has been home to a number of Iranian-Kurdish resistance groups that have previously conducted violent insurgency against Tehran. In recent years, their actions have diminished, but the latest surge of demonstrations in Iran has reignited the conflict.
Monday, rights organizations also accused Iranian security forces of using live fire and heavy weaponry to repress rallies in Kurdish-populated districts of the country’s west, therefore deepening a deadly crackdown.