Suspected Syrian air strike kills three soldiers

The attack occurred at around 3:30 am during a Turkish-backed Syrian rebel operation in northern Syria, the Turkish military said in a statement on Thursday. The military said 10 other soldiers were wounded in the air strike that it “assessed to have been carried out by Syrian regime forces”, but it gave no details on the exact location. 

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military. But it said in October the presence of Turkish troops on Syrian soil was a “flagrant breach of Syria’s sovereignty” and warned it would bring down Turkish warplanes entering its air space. Security and hospital sources in Turkey earlier blamed Islamic State fighters for the overnight attack and said it was in the al-Bab region. The wounded soldiers were transferred to hospitals in the Turkish border provinces of Kilis and Gaziantep, they said. 

NATO member Turkey sent tanks, special forces and jets into Syria on August 24 in support of largely Turkmen and Arab rebels in an offensive dubbed “Euphrates Shield” meant to push Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters from its border. President Tayyip Erdogan said last week that the Turkish-backed rebels were close to taking the Syrian city of al-Bab, the last urban stronghold of Islamic State in the northern Aleppo countryside.