The number of soldiers who have died as a result of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attacks in Syria’s al-Bab region has risen to 16, according to a statement from Defense Minister Fikri Işık on Thursday.
The latest ISIL attack took place on Wednesday morning near a field hospital where the Turkish soldiers were deployed. The bodies of the slain soldiers were transferred to the Gaziantep Council of Forensic Medicine by ambulance and military helicopter.
According to a statement from the Turkish military on Wednesday, four soldiers were killed and 15 others were injured during an ISIL attack in the morning. Ten soldiers were killed and 18 were injured during ISIL car bomb attacks in the afternoon. Six of the soldiers were seriously injured.
With the latest casualties, the total number of Turkish soldiers killed since August in Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield has reached 37, with 31 wounded.
The military also said it had killed 138 terrorists and destroyed 67 ISIL targets in al-Bab.
As part of Operation Euphrates Shield, Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels drive ISIL from the border city of Jarabulus on Aug. 24, in a dramatic escalation of its involvement in the Syrian civil war.