Turkey’s Defense Ministry has announced that four Turkish soldiers have been killed by a car bomb in northern Syria, where Turkey has been conducting a military operation since October.
The ministry said in its statement that the soldiers died in an explosion at a road checkpoint on Wednesday.
Turkey launched a long-planned operation in northern Syria, called Operation Peace Spring, on Oct. 9 aimed at taking out the Kurdish forces it sees as terrorists but which most of the West views as key partners in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.
The Turkish military operation began days after a surprise and widely criticized White House announcement that US forces would withdraw from the region.