Turkey has launched air strikes on Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria, a week after a bombing in Istanbul which it blames on Kurdish militants.
The strikes – dubbed Operation Claw-Sword – hit Kurdish bases which were being used to launch attacks on Turkey, the defence ministry said.
A Syrian-Kurdish spokesperson said two villages populated with internally displaced people were hit. The banned Kurdish PKK group denies carrying out the Istanbul attack.
As the air strikes began, the Turkish defence ministry tweeted that the “hour of reckoning” had arrived, alongside a picture of a fighter plane taking off and footage of an explosion.
“Terrorists’ shelters, bunkers, caves, tunnels, and warehouses were successfully destroyed,” said Turkey’s Defence Minister Hulusi Akar. The Turkish defence ministry later said the strikes on Kurdish militant bases in northern Syria and northern Iraq destroyed 89 targets.
Kurdish-led forces in Syria vowed to retaliate and said the city of Kobane was hit as well as two densely populated villages.
Later on Sunday a rocket fired from Syria reportedly injured three people on the border with Turkey, Turkish state media said.
At least 31 people were killed in northern Syria alone, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. / Compiled by argumentum.al with newswires
