Turkey kills 18 Daesh fighters in Syria

Turkey’s military killed 18 Daesh militants in northern Syria over the last 24 hours, the army said earlier today, intensifying strikes against the militant group.

Four buildings and one vehicle used by fighters belonging to the extremist group were destroyed in the strikes, an army statement said.

Separately, five Turkey-backed rebels and five Daesh militants were killed in clashes on the ground, the army said in its statement. In addition, it said coalition forces conducted six airstrikes which killed another 10 Daesh militants.

Turkey is backing a group of Syrian Arabs and Turkmen in northern Syria in its Euphrates Shield operation, which has swept Daesh from its southern border that it shares with its beleaguered Syrian



neighbour.

The hardline extremist group claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack in the Turkish southeastern city of Diyarbakir that killed 11 last week, and has been responsible for dozens of other attacks throughout Turkey over the past two years.

However, an offshoot of the Kurdish militant separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party group (PKK) claimed the same Diyarbakir attack, confirming the Turkish authorities’ allegations that they were responsible rather than Daesh.

The PKK is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Kurdish militants, Daesh radicals and far-left extremists have all staged attacks that have claimed over a thousand civilian lives in Turkey in recent years.