Turkish Suicide Drones Attack Kurdish Forces In Northern Syria (Photos)

Turkey continues to attack positions of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria with loitering munitions, commonly known as suicide drones.

On January 6, a Kargu loitering munition struck a position of the SDF in the outskirts of the town of Soghankeh in the northern Aleppo countryside. The strike, which considered with intense shelling on the town, didn’t cause any human losses.

On the same day, another loitering munition, likely a Kargu, hit an SDF position in the outskirts of al-Khalidiyah town in the northern countryside of Raqqa. A child who was passing by the position was lightly wounded in hand as a result of the strike.

The Kargu loitering munition, which was developed by Turkey’s STM, has a maximum range of five kilometers and an endurance of up 30 minutes. The munition can operate in a swarm and has AI [artificial intelligence] image processing capabilities with support for facial recognition.

Turkey escalated its air and artillery strikes on the SDF late in November after accusing the group’s core faction, the People’s Protection Units, of being involved in a bombing in Istanbul that left six people dead and more than 80 others wounded.

Initially, Ankara threatened the SDF with a ground operation. However, it settled to regular strikes after facing pressure from both the United States, the main backer of the group, and Russia.

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