Terrorist attack in Aleppo, wounded child, Syria blames Turkey
DAMASCUS, ($1=1,257.86 Syrian Pounds) – One person was killed and several civilians, including a child, were injured in a car bomb blast in the town of Afrin in the northwestern province of Aleppo, learned BulgarianMilitary.com, citing the state news agency SANA. The agency recalls that the city was occupied by the Turkish occupation forces and “terrorist organizations hired by them.”
Local sources told SANA that a car bomb exploded near the Kava roundabout in downtown Afrin, near one of the headquarters of the Turkish occupation mercenaries of so-called Jaish al-Islam terrorists, killing one person and injuring several others. varying degrees of severity, including a child, and causing property damage to the site.
“In the areas occupied by the Turkish regime and its terrorist mercenaries, there is security chaos, witnessed by bombings, assassinations, a war of liquidation and battles between these mercenaries as a result of disputes between them, leading to the deaths of many of them, the martyrdom and wounding of several citizens, as well as damage to public and private property,” SANA said.
Terrorism will be eliminated, Erdogan said
As we reported, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that he would no longer tolerate the threat of terrorists in northern Syria and threatened to solve the problem on his own.
“We do not intend to be patient with places in Syria that are a springboard for terrorist attacks on our country,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Anadolu agency.
According to him, “Turkey is determined to eliminate the threats emanating from northern Syria, either together with the forces operating there or with its resources.”
In September, Erdogan announced that Turkey would continue to fight extremists in the Syrian province of Idlib. He recalled the need to maintain a ceasefire in the region for the return of Syrian refugees to their places of origin, and that more than 1 million refugees have already returned from Turkey to Syria, including 400,000 who have returned to Idlib.
As a rule, Turkish authorities call the fighters of Kurdish paramilitaries terrorists operating in northern Syria.
The civil war in Syria
The Syrian civil war has been going on for almost a decade. Attempts by movements such as the Syrian Democratic Forces to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have failed.
The Syrian democratic forces are armed by allies and the United States, while the Syrian army is armed mainly by Russia. Russia is the only country officially invited to Syria by President Bashar al-Assad.
In 2017, the United States launched a massive missile strike on Bashar al-Assad’s forces after a report emerged that the Syrian president had used chemical weapons to attack his people in the country. Syria and Russia deny such actions.
During his tenure, US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw much of US troops from Syria, leaving several troops to guard Syria’s oil fields on the pretext of “falling into the hands of Islamic State.”
With the withdrawal of the United States, Turkey comes to the fore, declaring it necessary to deal with the Kurds and the PKK movement in the northern part of the country, which borders Turkey. That is why Erdogan is sending troops in an attempt to build a stable and secure 30km zone between Syria and Turkey, which will prevent future terrorist attacks on Turkish territory, as it is.
Ceasefire
In February 2020, Turkey lost at least 62 troops killed in Syria. Nearly 100 soldiers were wounded, Syrian-backed forces destroyed dozens of Turkish armored vehicles, and more than ten drones, including drones, were shot down. Washington has repeatedly accused Moscow of involvement in the deaths of Turkish soldiers, Russia rejects these allegations.
In early March 2020, the presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, agreed that a ceasefire came into force in the Idlib de-escalation zone. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad later said that if the US and Turkish military did not leave the country, Damascus would use military power.
The reason for the Russian-Turkish negotiations was a sharp aggravation of the situation in Idlib, where in January, a large-scale offensive by the Syrian army against the positions of the armed opposition and terrorists began.
Government forces recaptured nearly half of the Idlib de-escalation zone and left behind several Turkish observation posts. After that, Ankara sharply increased its military contingent in the region and launched the operation “Spring Shield” to push the Syrian troops. Militants are loyal to Ankara and support Turkey.
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