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Ankara Announces Killing of 2 SDF Leaders in Northeastern Syria

Members of the Deir Ezzor military council which fights under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seen in Deir al-Zor province, Syria August 25, 2017. (Reuters)
Members of the Deir Ezzor military council which fights under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seen in Deir al-Zor province, Syria August 25, 2017. (Reuters)
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Ankara Announces Killing of 2 SDF Leaders in Northeastern Syria

Members of the Deir Ezzor military council which fights under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seen in Deir al-Zor province, Syria August 25, 2017. (Reuters)
Members of the Deir Ezzor military council which fights under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seen in Deir al-Zor province, Syria August 25, 2017. (Reuters)

Turkey announced on Monday the killing of two senior leaders of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the largest component of the Washington-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Two “terrorist” leaders of the YPG were eliminated in an air raid targeting their location in the al-Hasakah governorate, northeastern Syria, Turkish intelligence sources told Anadolu Agency.

The Turkish intelligence service was able to “neutralize” YPG leader Muhammad Aydin in the city of al-Darbasiyah in al-Hasakah, reported Anadolu.

Sources pointed out that Aydin joined the ranks of the Kurdish units in 2005 after coming from Iran. He operated in the countryside of Tunceli province in eastern Turkey and in the southern Hatay province between 2010 and 2013.

In 2013, he became a “regiment official” in Ain al-Arab (Kobani) in the Syrian countryside of Aleppo, and in 2015 a “front official” in Afrin in the countryside of Aleppo.

He later assumed responsibility for the Amuda and Darbasiyah regions.

Sources stated that Aydin had previously participated in the process of detaining and threatening to kill villagers in the Dortyol district in Hatay in 2013.

Local sources in northeastern Syria revealed that the operation that targeted Aydin also killed Sarfaraz Nidal, also known as “Yildiz.”

Yildiz was a member of the Kurdish Organization of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. The organization is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Yildiz joined the group in 1991 and was arrested by Turkish intelligence in 2012 and released in 2017.

Sources said the SDF had buried Aydin and Yildiz in the village of Al-Daoudia in the countryside of al-Hasakah.

Separately, an operation led by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization led to the arrest of two ISIS terrorists in Syria, security sources said on Monday.

The terrorists, identified as Orhan Moran and Mustafa Kilicli, have been brought to Turkey, said the sources, who requested anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

They were handed over to gendarmerie forces in Turkey’s southeastern border province of Hatay, the sources said.

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Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
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Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb

An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.

Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel's ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country's north.

Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into northern and central Israel on Sunday, some of which were intercepted.

Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said it was treating two people in the central city of Petah Tikva, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast and a 70-year-old woman suffering from smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire. The first responders said they also treated two women in their 50s who were wounded in northern Israel.

It was unclear whether the injuries and damage were caused by the rockets or interceptors.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.