Turkish intelligence forces have neutralized 11 from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the largest component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in an operation conducted in Manbij, Aleppo’s eastern countryside.
Turkish security sources said Monday that the intelligence members determined the sites from where attacks were launched against the Operation Euphrates Shield area that is controlled by the Turkish forces and the factions known as Ankara-pro Syrian National Army in Aleppo.
The intelligence further determined the locations from where “terrorists” sneak to carry out terrorist attacks in the region.
Anadolu Agency quoted sources as saying that the MIT closely monitored the shelters of terrorists in Manbij and conducted simultaneous operations in cooperation with the Turkish Armed Forces, killing 11 terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its extensions and destroying a terrorists’ compound.
Türkiye considers the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Syria.
Ankara escalated land and aerial shelling in the past three weeks against the sites ruled by SDF and the Syrian army in northern Syria in retaliation for two SDF offensives on a military base in Kaljibrin in Aleppo’s northern countryside ad a police station in Kilis.
The Turkish Ministry of National Defense announced 69 SDF members dead in response to the two offensives.
The escalation mainly focused on Manbij and Tell Rifaat which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced last year as the focus of a new Turkish operation that targets the SDF-ruled locations in order to resume the establishment of safe zones for Syrian refugees.
Erdogan reiterated talks about the military operation months before the presidential and parliamentary elections held in Türkiye in May. Yet it faced objections from the US, Russia, and several parties involved in the Syrian crisis.
The Turkish intelligence eradicated via drones several leaders from the YPG through recent operations in northern Syria.
Moreover, the intelligence revealed on Friday the killing of Abdul Rahman Chadarchi (Jadarji), a member of the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization, in an operation conducted in Al-Qamishly.
Meanwhile, Russian Military Police conducted on Monday a one-sided patrol without the Turkish forces in the eastern countryside of Kobani, eastern Aleppo.
A joint patrol was scheduled between the Russian and Turkish forces. However, the Turkish military vehicles did not show up at the border gate near the village of Gharib, 20 km east of Kobani, due to the Eid holiday.
Four Russian military vehicles passed through the scheduled patrol route alone, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Moreover, Russian forces conducted a military patrol comprising four military armored vehicles in the eastern and western countryside of Al-Dirbasiya, where the patrol set off from Al-Qamishly Airport in northern Al-Hasakah countryside and checked military checkpoints where the Syrian army is stationed near the Turkish borders.
The Russian forces continued to conduct one-sided patrols during the past three months which witnessed a Turkish escalation in the SDF and Syrian forces areas.
