Rocket attack kills Turkish soldier in Syria's rebel-held Idlib
The Turkish military says the soldier was killed in the late hours of Monday by a mortar-and-rocket attack, which also wounded five others.
2 min read
Syrians have called on the UN to take action against Russian warplanes in Idlib [Getty]
A Turkish soldier was killed in an attack in Syria’s Idlib province where Turkey’s troops are "establishing an observation post."
The military says the soldier was killed in the late hours of Monday by a mortar-and-rocket attack. Five Turkish soldiers and a civilian military contractor were also wounded.
Turkey began deploying forces in an observer role to the rebel-held Idlib in northwestern Syria in October as part of a “de-escalation” agreement with Iran and Russia to stabilise the lines of conflict in the war-torn country.
That deployment is separate from a Turkish military offensive that Ankara launched last month to rout US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters from the northern enclave of Afrin.
Syrian government forces are on the offensive in Idlib, where militants shot down a Russian Su-25 over the weekend.
A Syrian rebel coalition has called on the United Nations to take action against the "barbaric onslaught" on Idlib by Russian warplanes since the weekend incident.
The Istanbul-based National Coalition said in a statement on Sunday that Russian warplanes had carried out at least 40 airstrikes in Idlib, killing dozens of civilians, and accused the Syrian regime of dropping chemical weapons.
The Syrian conflict began when the Baath regime, in power since 1963 and led by Assad, responded with military force to peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms during the Arab Spring wave of uprisings, triggering an armed rebellion fuelled by mass defections from the Syrian army.
The brutal tactics pursued mainly by the regime, which have included the use of chemical weapons, sieges, mass executions and torture against civilians have led to war crimes investigations.
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