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On July 24, a Turkish drone strike targeted a checkpoint of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) near the town of al-Dardara in the northern al-Hasakah countryside.
The pro-opposition Shahed Agency claimed that the checkpoint was manned by personnel of the SDF’s security forces, commonly known as Asayish.
“As a result of the strike three personnel of the SDF’s security body, Asayish, were severely injured, they were transported to a hospital in Tell Tamr town in northern al-Hasakah,” the agency quoted local sources as saying.
The motive behind the Turkish drone strike remains unclear. The SDF has not made any comment on the incident, thus far.
In the last few months, a number of Turkish drone strikes targeted northeastern Syria. Last week, a drone attack believed to be carried out by Turkish forces injured six Russian and Syrian service members in northern al-Hasakah. The attack is being investigated.
Turkish drone strikes are threatening stability in northeastern Syria. Turkey committed to de-escalate tension in the region and ceasefire in two separate agreements with the U.S. and Russia last year. However, Ankara’s forces are still carrying some operations there.
It’s a bit unusual for the Turks to target the Asayish forces like this, they’re not actually the military arm of the SDF, just the police and intelligence forces that are tasked with localized security duties, and in this area where the attack occurred, the people manning the checkpoints could have possibly been ethnic Turkmen, so that would be somewhat ironic if they were. Nearly half of the SDF Asayish personnel come from non Kurdish groups like the Christians and other religious/ethnic minority groups, and they’re usually deployed back into the areas that they live in, and in this area where this latest attack occurred there are more ethnic Turkmen serving in the Asayish forces than there are anywhere else. So it just proves Erdogan isn’t discriminating at all when he attacks the SDF, he even attacks his own Turkmen brothers when he thinks he needs to, but the SNC won’t be happy about this latest development and may have something to say about it, after all they’re right in the middle of power sharing negotiations with the SDF, and this isn’t helping those negotiations. Erdogan’s not only harming the SNC negotiations with this latest attack he’s also his harming his own interests as well, he actually wants the SNC to get a good deal from the SDF because the SNC is actually a pro Turkish political party, they have a good political relationship with Turkey unlike the SDF, so this latest action does nothing at all to help the SNC/SDF negotiations, if anything Erdogan just helped to cut his own throat, not very deeply but just enough to make him bleed. :]