A Bayraktar Akıncı combat drone. Source: the Turkish Ministry of National Defense.
On May 11, a Turkish combat drone targeted a vehicle on the M4 highway to the south of the town of Kobane in Syria’s northern region.
Kobane, which is located in the northern Aleppo countryside, is a key stronghold of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based pro-opposition monitoring group, said that the strike killed a local economic official of the SDF’s Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, along with her driver. Other sources identified the slain official as “Zain Kobane.”
The SDF-linked Hawar News Agency reported an “attack” on a vehicle to the south of Kobane without elaborating. The group and its administration are yet to make any comment on the drone strike.
Ankara considers the core faction of the SDF, the People’s Protection Units, to be the Syrian branch of the terrorist-designated Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
This was the second Turkish drone strike to target SDF territory this month. On May 5, a combat drone targeted a military vehicle near the village Kairouan in the northeastern countryside of al-Hasakah. The strike killed two personnel of the group.
In April, Turkish intelligence killed two commanders of the SDF, Mehmet Sari and Sabri Abdullah, in separate drone strikes on northern and eastern Syria.
Despite being unable to launch any new ground operation against the SDF due to the objection of the United States and Russia, Turkey continues to launch drone and artillery strikes against the group. Ankara hopes that the ongoing normalization process with Damascus will eventually allow it to resume operations on the ground.
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