Report: Turkish drone attacks kill two SDF militants in Northern Syria

Turkey has killed at least two US-backed SDF militants in separate drone attacks in Northern Syria on Sunday night, whom one of them was serving as a commander, Iranian media said. 

Several others, including civilians were severely wounded during the attacks targeting Syria's Al-Raqqa and Qamishli, Mehr news agency reported on Monday.

Since 2016, Turkey carried out three military operations into Northern Syria to combat Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a US-backed group that Ankara sees as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). PKK is an outlawed armed group in Turkey, fighting an insurgency on Turkish soil for almost four decades and designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. The YPG is allied with the West in a fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), forming the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Turkish drones on Sunday targeted a checkpoint belonging to the SDF in a village in the Northeastern Al-Raqqa province, Mehr said.

One SDF military force was killed and two other people were severely wounded during the attack, it said.

One of the SDF commanders was killed and three civilians were injured during a second drone attack targeting a car in Qamishli, also located in the Northeast of Syria, the news agency reported.

Turkish military forces also regularly conduct cross-border operations in Northern Iraq against Kurdish militants. 

The governments of Damascus and Baghdad, as well as the Erbil administration (the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, KRI) oppose Turkey’s military operations in their soil, condemning the attacks as illegitimate.