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Turkish said the airstrikes were an anti-terror operation against militants accused of bombing Istanbul last week.
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By Ben Hubbard and Sangar Khaleel
ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes Sunday in northern Syria and Iraq in what Turkey called an anti-terror crusade to root out militants it accused of orchestrating a deadly bombing last week in Istanbul.
“Scoundrels are found guilty of treacherous attacks!” the Turkish Defense Ministry wrote on Twitter ahead of Sunday in a message with a photo of a fighter jet taking off. The movements targeted shelters, tunnels, ammunition depots and educational camps, the ministry said.
More than two dozen people were reportedly killed, but other teams gave other numbers and probably wouldn’t have identified all the fighters killed.
The Kurdish-led defense force that administers northeastern Syria said 14 civilians and one fighter were killed. The group, like the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, vowed to retaliate against Turkey.
“These attacks will go unanswered,” the S. D. F. said. Said. The General Command said in a statement. ” We will respond well and successfully at the right time and in the right place. “
The new violence has been a sharp rise in tensions between two long-hated forces that have close relations with the United States.
In Syria, the U. S. The U. S. has been working with the Syrian Democratic Forces to fight the Islamic State, and a small contingent of U. S. forces remains in the organization’s territory in northeastern Syria near the Turkish border.
But that camaraderie has infuriated Turkey, America’s best friend in NATO that sees Syria’s Kurdish fighters as part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged a bloody insurgency for decades against the Turkish state seeking independence or greater autonomy. Union and the United States rebel group, known as the PKK, a terrorist organization.
After a bomb attack last week that killed six others and wounded dozens on a busy Istanbul pedestrian street, the Turkish government released photographs of a woman they said planted the bomb and accused her of running for the PKK. Dozens of other suspects have been arrested, as the government seeks to find out how the crime was committed.
The Istanbul bombing was the first such attack in Turkey in more than five years, and raised fears that the country would return to the days when its cities were attacked by the PKK or Islamic State jihadists.
The S. D. F. in Syria and the armed wing of the PKK. Both denied any involvement in the Istanbul attack.
On Sunday, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said its fighter jets hit 89 targets in northern Iraq and Syria, the entire army infrastructure connected to the PKK. terror at its source,” the ministry said.
A video posted on the ministry’s Twitter account showed the names of two young Turks killed in the Istanbul attack written on bombs on fighter jets.
Farhad Shami, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces in northwestern Syria, said among the civilians killed were a force plant and two guards protecting grain silos, as well as an SDF fighter.
A pediatric hospital under construction near the Syrian city of Kobani was also attacked on Sunday, Syrian Kurdish health officials said.
In reaction to the Turkish attacks, seven Turkish policemen and one soldier were wounded in a rocket attack near a border gate on the Turkish-Syrian border, the Turkish Interior Ministry said, accusing Kurdish militants in Syria of launching the attack.
The S. D. F. no commented on the rocket attack.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British organization that monitors the fighting through internal contacts in Syria, said the dead included a civilian, 14 SDF fighters and 12 infantrymen from the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said “several” of its infantrymen were killed in movements at its bases in northeastern Syria.
Ben Hubbard reported from Istanbul and Sangar Khaleel from Dohuk, Iraq. Hwaida Saad has contributed to reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, and Safak Timur from Istanbul.
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