ANKARA – Turkey has suffered its first loss of life in an intensifying campaign against militancy in northern Syria.
A soldier was killed when Kurdish fighters fired on tanks. Kurdish media say three tanks were destroyed.
Turkish tanks backed by gunship helicopters rolled into Syrian territory earlier this week in an operation aimed at so-called Islamic State but also at Kurdish forces in the area.
Elsewhere in Syria activists say at least 15 people were killed in a barrel bomb attack in Aleppo, the BBC rpeorted.
Turkey has vowed to continue the campaign until there is no longer a “terror” threat from its neighbor, likely to refer both to IS and to the Kurds.
It fears Kurdish fighters gaining an unbroken strip of territory along its border, which would be a huge boost to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a banned Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy in Turkey.
The Turkish move further complicates the already protracted Syrian civil war. Both Turkey and Kurdish rebels are US allies.
