Eight Turkish security forces, including five police officers and three soldiers, were injured in a rocket attack carried out by the PKK/YPG terrorist group in Syria on Thursday.
The attack was carried out on the Turkish military base in the town of Dabiq in the rural Tal Rifaat region in northern Syria, Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported.
Injured security forces were immediately evacuated from the base and were taken to hospitals in Türkiye's Gaziantep and Kilis provinces near the border with Syria.
Military units retaliated against the terrorists by shelling the area controlled by the terrorists.
On Thursday, security sources noted that the Turkish military hit PKK/YPG targets in northern Syria and destroyed weapons and ammunution storage facilities.
The PKK is a designated terrorist organization in the United States, Türkiye and the European Union, and Washington's support for its Syrian affiliate has been a major strain on bilateral relations with Ankara. The PKK/YPG has controlled much of northeastern Syria after the forces of Syrian regime leader Bashar Assad withdrew in 2012. The U.S. primarily partnered with PKK/YPG terrorists in northeastern Syria in its fight against the Daesh terrorist group. On the other hand, Türkiye strongly opposed the PKK/YPG's presence in northern Syria.
Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to the PKK/YPG, despite its NATO ally's security concerns. Underlining that one cannot support one terrorist group to defeat another, Türkiye conducted its counterterrorism operations throughout, removing a significant number of terrorists from the region.
Since 2016, Ankara has launched a trio of successful counterterrorism operations across its border in northern Syria to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents: Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018) and Peace Spring (2019).
