SOHR: 4 dead in a Turkish drone attack in the northeastern part of the country

At least four people were killed today in attack Turkish drone in a town in northeastern Syria controlled by the Kurds, a Syrian non-governmental organization announced.

The drone targeted “people working on behalf of the semi-autonomous Kurdish authority as they dug trenches near a hospital in Qamishli,” said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

“At least four of them are dead,” he added, clarifying that the hospital is near the border with Turkey, where the Kurds have stepped up their security measures since Ankara threatened to carry out a new attack on them.

Turkey considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main militia of Kurdish forces that make up the hard core of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara considers ” terrorist organisation”.

Between 2016 and 2019, Turkey launched three operations on its border against the YPG militia.

According to the Observatory and Kurdish officials, Ankara has stepped up its drone attacks against Kurds in Syria since the July 19 Tehran summit between Iran, Russia and Turkey.

On Saturday, a similar attack targeting a car in Qamishli killed four people, according to the same sources.

In late July, the Syrian Democratic Forces claimed 13 lives, including three female commanders, in drone strikes attributed to the Turkish military.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been threatening since May to launch an operation in northern Syria to establish a 30km security zone along its border.

However, according to experts, Ankara did not receive the green light at the tripartite summit in Tehran for a large-scale military operation against the Kurds in northeastern Syria.

Otherwise, Ankara launches airstrikes against Kurdish targets, according to Nick Heras, a researcher at the New Lines Institute.

Kurdish forces control most of northeastern Syria, a country that has been torn apart since the war that broke out in 2011 and has involved several groups and foreign powers over the years.