As of: January 18, 2024, 5:15 p.m
By: Laura May
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Turkey attacks more than 60 Kurdish sites in Syria and destroys infrastructure.
The Observatory speaks of war crimes.
Ankara – Turkey is flying attacks on Kurdish areas in Syria.
According to the Kurdish news agency
ANF,
parts of the Kurdish infrastructure in northern and eastern Syria were destroyed in around 80 attacks with aircraft and drones.
Five Syrian soldiers and seven civilians are said to have been killed since Saturday, according to a sad interim report on Thursday (January 18).
In addition to the fighting in Gaza, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, another source of fire is smoldering in the region.
A spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) confirmed the fighting to the
dpa
news agency .
The attacks were mainly aimed at civilian infrastructure such as power plants or wheat storage facilities.
The only gas power plant in northeastern Syria was completely destroyed.
In addition, a power plant that supplied around 930 towns in the region with electricity was damaged.
The fight against the Kurdish ethnic minority is a matter close to Erdogan's heart.
© IMAGO/Mehmet Masum Suer
Turkey attack on Kurds: Observatory speaks of war crimes
Many villages were completely cut off from the outside world by the attacks.
The residents are now waiting in the dark.
But light is not the only problem.
“You can’t pump drinking water without electricity,” said the SDF spokesman.
The
ANF
news agency also reports attacks on private individuals' homes and agricultural supply structures and educational institutions.
The education of around 890,860 students in northern and eastern Syria is at risk.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made the fight against Kurds a top priority.
Erdogan's fight is directed against the Kurdish people as a whole and is intended to destroy the autonomously organized Kurdish region in Syria (Kurdish: Rojava).
Erdogan often chooses inhumane rhetoric towards his opponents that devalues their entire ethnic group, including their language.
Many observers also believe that the attacks on Kurdish lives are often disproportionate.
This was also the case in the recent fighting.
“These are war crimes committed by Turkish forces in a region where more than five million Syrians live,” the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told
dpa
.
Turkey's attack on Kurdish areas in Syria: militia or freedom fight?
The Turkish attack in Syria was triggered by clashes with PKK fighters in northern Iraq in which at least nine Turkish soldiers were killed.
This was the second clash between the Turkish military and the PKK in three weeks.
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According to Turkish information, according to the Austrian daily newspaper
Der Standard,
the current attack targets are posts of the suspected Kurdish militia YPG.
For Erdogan, this is equivalent to the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the USA.
For the USA, however, the YPG is an important partner in the fight against the terrorist militia of the Islamic State (IS).
Meanwhile, President Erdogan wants to expand rather than reduce his fight against the Kurds.
After Turkey, as an ally of the rebel groups, had already invaded the Kurdish self-administration zone three times during the Syrian war, he again threatened a military offensive in Syria: "We will not feel comfortable as long as bloodthirsty murderers are running around in Syria and Iraq."