The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday 11 people including civilians were killed in attacks by a Kurdish-led force on positions of Turkey-backed fighters in north Syria, Agence France-Presse reported.
“A woman, her two children and a man were killed … in the bombing of a military position … used by Ankara-backed factions for human smuggling operations to Turkey,” the Britain-based group said.
It said seven Turkey-backed fighters were also killed in that incident and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control swaths of northeast Syria.
SDF special forces infiltrated a Turkey-backed group’s military position and killed three fighters, the rights group, with a network of sources inside Syria, said.
The SDF also booby-trapped a military position as they withdrew in an attack that killed another four pro-Turkey fighters but also four civilians including a woman and her two children, the observatory said.
On Sunday 15 Ankara-backed Syrian fighters were killed after the SDF infiltrated their territory, the group reported earlier.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Islamic State group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swaths of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.