Turkish drone strike kills three, injures one in Syria's Hasaka province

Turkish drone strike kills three, injures one in Syria's Hasaka province
A Turkish drone struck a jeep, killing the driver and two women accompanying him and wounding another person close by at the time, a source said.
2 min read
23 July, 2022
The person wounded in the Turkish strike in Syria is a civilian, a source said [Omar Albam/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty-file photo]

A Turkish drone strike killed three people and left one other injured in Syria's far northeast on Friday evening.

The incident took place in Shorek village, in the Hasaka province countryside to the east of the city of Qamishli, The New Arab's Arabic sister service, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, reported.

The Turkish drone struck a jeep, killing the driver and two women accompanying him and wounding another person close by at the time, a source from Shorek told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

The source, who preferred not to be named for security reasons, said the people in the car had not been identified and it is unknown whether they were civilians or military.

The wounded person is a civilian and was taken to a nearby hospital, according to the source.

Earlier on Friday, a Turkish drone struck near a Syrian regime military post with two missiles, though did not cause any casualties.

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This took place in the village of Zour Maghar, in the western countryside of Kobanî, a city in Aleppo province near the Turkish border.

Turkey relies heavily on drones to target members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – the military wing of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), a Kurdish-led self-ruling region also known as Rojava.

The People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia group, heads the SDF up.

Ankara considers the YPG a terrorist group, alleging it is the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has been waging an armed insurgency within Turkey's borders for decades.

It is likely drones will be among Turkey's most important weapons if it goes ahead with plans to launch a new military offensive aimed against the YPG in northeastern Syria.

The SDF accuses Turkey's army of targeting civilians with drones by bombing residential locations in areas under its control.

SDF spokesperson Aram Hanna previously told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Ankara "uses drones, in addition to indiscriminate artillery shelling, on the frontlines and in the border strip".

Turkey has attacked AANES areas with drones 38 times since early this year, killing 27 people, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.