Turkish army tanks and military personal are stationed in Karkamis on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern Gaziantep province, Turkey, August 25, 2016. © Umit Bektas / Reuters
On August 26, an indirect fire attack targeted a base of the Turkish military located near the town of Kurmaza in the northern countryside of Syria’s Raqqa.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the attack was carried out by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The London-based monitoring group didn’t report any casualties or material losses as a result of the attack.
The indirect fire attack came following a series of artillery strikes by the Turkish military and its proxies that targeted the SDF-held town of Ain Issa and several nearby villages in the northern countryside of Raqqa.
This was the second Turkish military base in northern Syria to be targeted in less than a week. On August 24, an indirect fire attack targeted a base near the village of al-Ghuz in the northern Aleppo countryside. The Afrin Liberation Forces, a Kurdish guerilla group affiliated with the SDF, was likely behind the attack.
The SDF intensified its attacks on the Turkish military bases in northern Syria in the last few weeks in response to a series of drone and artillery strikes that killed dozens of its members and civilians.
On August 24, three civilians were killed and six others were wounded when a Turkish loitering munitions struck the municipality of Tell Rifaat town in the northern countryside of Aleppo. The death toll from the strike rose to four on August 26, when one of the wounded was pronounced dead.
Turkey has apparently increased its drone and artillery strikes on SDF-held areas instead of launching a full-blown military operation against the group.
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