(Reuters) – Turkish aircraft shelled two villages populated with internally displaced people in northern Syria, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Twitter late on Saturday.
Turkey said on Tuesday it plans to pursue targets in northern Syria after it completes a cross-border operation against outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in Iraq, following a deadly bomb last weekend in Istanbul.
The government has blamed Kurdish militants for the blast on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue on Nov. 13 that killed six people and injured more than 80.
“The Turkish occupation aircraft are shelling the al-Beilonya village which is heavily populated with Afrin IDPs who were forcibly displaced from Afrin in 2018,” said Farhad Shami, head of the SDF media centre, on Twitter.
“In addition to the Dahir al-Arab village, which is populated with Ras al-Ain IDPs who were also forcibly displaced by the Turkish occupation in 2019,” he added.
The Turkish defence ministry said in a tweet late on Saturday it was “asking for account for the treacherous attack” with a photo of a fighter jet taking off.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast on the busy pedestrian avenue, and the PKK and SDF have denied involvement.
Turkey has conducted three incursions so far into northern Syria against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which it says is a wing of the PKK. President Tayyip Erdogan has previously said Turkey could conduct another operation against the YPG.
(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Writing by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Chris Reese)
