QAMISHLI, Syria: A Turkish air strike Monday killed 11 Kurdish security personnel and wounded dozens at a training center for police in Kurdish-held northeast Syria, a war monitor said.

“Eleven killed and dozens wounded after a Turkish war plane targeted a training center” belonging to the internal security forces, known as the Asayish, on the outskirts of Al-Malikiyeh in Hasakah province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Kurdish force reported the strike in a statement, saying that “a number of our forces were killed and others wounded.”

AFP correspondents said authorities in the area have called for blood donations.

Amid the chaos of Syria’s long-running civil conflict, Syria’s Kurds have carved out a semi-autonomous area in the country’s northeast.

Since Thursday, Turkiye has been bombing sites in the area, hitting civilian and military targets and infrastructure and causing casualties, according to Kurdish authorities.

Turkiye’s defense ministry said Friday it had launched the new wave of air strikes in retaliation for an attack in Ankara earlier this month that wounded two security personnel.

A branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies — claimed responsibility for the first bombing to hit the Turkish capital since 2016.

Turkiye launched strikes on PKK positions in northern Iraq hours after the October 1 attack, with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan saying days later that the assailants “came from Syria and were trained there.”

The US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces led the battle that dislodged Daesh group fighters from their last scraps of territory in Syria in 2019.

Turkiye views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that dominate the SDF as an offshoot of the PKK.

AFP