Istanbul attack: air raid against the city of Kobané in Syria and Turkish threats
Pedestrians cross Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul, where a bomb killed six people on November 13, 2022. © AFP - YASIN AKGUL
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Kurdish forces in Syria accused the Turkish army of having carried out several aerial bombardments against the city of Kobané on Saturday November 19, a few days after Ankara designated the Kurdish movement of the PKK responsible for an attack which bloodied Istanbul.
Turkey also asserted that “the hour of reckoning has come”.
Advertising
Read more
“
The hour of reckoning has come!
The bastards will be held to account for their treacherous attacks
,” the Turkish Defense Ministry announced on Twitter on Sunday, showing a photo of a plane taking off for a night operation with no location specified.
“
Nests of terror are razed by precision strikes
,” he added in another message on Twitter, posted with a video showing the definition of a target followed by an explosion, still without specifying where. the attack takes place.
The ministry does not give any details on the operation which seemed to be in progress in the night from Saturday to Sunday, but the Kurdish forces announced "
aerial bombardments of the Turkish army
" against the locality of Kobané, in the northeast of Syria, and against two other villages.
More than twenty strikes were carried out by the Turkish army in the two provinces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), an NGO based in London and which has an extensive network of sources in Syria, without being able to provide a statement of losses and damages.
US fears of Turkish military action
The raids come days after the SDF, backed by Washington, denied any connection to
the November 13 Istanbul bombing
, which left six people dead and 81 injured.
Turkish authorities accuse a young woman of Syrian nationality of having planted the bomb, which exploded in the main shopping street of Istiklal, in the center of Istanbul.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu had specifically accused Kurdish YPG forces, which control most of northeastern Syria, of being responsible for the attack, saying "
the order of the attack was been given from Kobane
.
The US State Department said on Friday it feared "
possible military action by Turkey
", advising its nationals not to travel to northern Syria and Iraq.
► To read also:
Istanbul attack: the PKK behind the attack, "one of the possible leads"
(
With
AFP)
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
Turkey
Terrorism
Kurds