Three Turkish soldiers killed in a bomb blast on the border with Syria

Turkish security forces have killed at least 12 members of the Kurdish militant group People’s Protection Units (YPG) following the death of three Turkish soldiers in a bomb blast on Saturday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.

“After the attack with an improvised explosive device”, in which “three of our heroic comrades were martyred”, according to the Turkish Ministry of Defense, in the town of Akcakale, on the Turkish-Syrian border, “PKK / YPG positions” were hit and “neutralized”. “12 terrorists, based on the initial findings,” he said via Twitter.

The Turkish military is continuing operations in the area, according to the same source.

Three Turkish soldiers were killed when a bomb exploded on the border with Syria, the ministry said earlier. “Terrorists” had placed her there, he added, without giving any other details.

Fighting in the area is frequent.

On Friday, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced that its forces had killed eight YPG members in northern Syria because they “attempted to attack” them.

On the other side of the border, opposite Akcakale, is the Syrian city of Tal Abyad, which has been occupied by the Turkish army and its Syrian aides since October 2019, when Ankara launched an attack on the Kurdish paramilitary organization YPG.

Ankara has launched a series of operations in Turkey, Iraq and Syria against Kurdish rebels who either belong to or are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

In northern Syria, the Turkish army conducted large-scale operations against the YPG in 2016, 2018 and 2019.

For Ankara, the YPG is a “terrorist” arm of the PKK in Syria, although it has played a key role in US operations against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in Syria.

The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by the Turkish government, the US and the EU, has been waging a guerrilla war against the Turkish state since 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.