ANKARA – A Turkish soldier was killed as the country pressed its offensiveagainst Kurdish militia targets in northern Syria, the army said,confirming the operation’s first Turkish fatality on its third day.
“One of our heroic soldiers was martyred during clashes” with Kurdishmilitants from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia southeast of theTurkish border town of Gulbaba in Kilis on Monday, the Turkish army said ina statement.
The Turkish military launched operation “Olive Branch” on Saturday, itssecond major intervention in Syria’s seven-year civil war.
The operation, with Turkish war planes and artillery backing a major groundoffensive involving Ankara-backed Syrian opposition fighters and Turkishtanks, aims to remove the YPG from its Afrin enclave.
Turkey views the YPG as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’Party (PKK), which has fought a decades long insurgency against the Turkishstate.
It is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.
Ankara launched its first offensive in Syria dubbed Euphrates Shield inSyria in August 2016 to March 2017, which targeted the ouster of theIslamic State extremist group and the YPG in an area east of Afrin.
A total of 72 Turkish soldiers were killed during the first operation. APP