Kurdish YPG shelling kills mother, son near Turkish border

(Zaman Al Wasl)- A mother and her son were killed on Sunday when the powerful Kurdish militia YPG launched a rocket attack on the northern town of Marea near the Turkish border, medics told Zaman al-Wasl.

Six more people, mostly children, were wounded in the attack. In retaliation, rebel factions have pounded YPG barracks in the town of Sheikh Issa with mortar and and artillery.

The skirmishes at border and mounting power of Kurdish militias pushed Turkish army to dispatch artillery to the border province of Kilis to reinforce units there, Turkey's official Anadolu news agency said Saturday.

The six-vehicle convoy included tanks and howitzers to be positioned across from the Kurdish-controlled Syrian region of Afrin, according to the private Dogan news agency.

In late April, Turkey began relocating military units to Sanliurfa province across from another YPG-controlled area.

Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated Saturday that new cross-border operations into Syria are in the works as the country boosts its military presence along the border against threats from Kurdish militants in war-torn Syria.

Erdogan said Turkey is determined to launch "new moves" akin to its foray into northern Syria last August. "It's clear that the situation in Syria goes beyond a war on a terror organization," Erdogan said, referring to the Islamic State group, and alluding to Kurdish aspirations for statehood.

Turkey has been vehemently opposed to the presence of the People's Protection Units, or YPG, in northern Syria. The Syrian Kurdish militants are a key U.S. ally in the fight against IS in Syria, and the ongoing campaign to retake the extremist group's de-facto capital of Raqqa.

But Turkey, a NATO member, considers the YPG to be a terror group and an extension of Kurdish militants that have waged a three-decades-long insurgency inside its borders. The country fears that the Syrian Kurds will attempt to link its semi-autonomous regions in northern Syria, which Erdogan calls a "terror entity project" that threatens his country.

In last year's cross-border operation dubbed Euphrates Shield, Turkey-backed Syrian opposition groups and the Turkish military cleared an area in northern Syria of IS and prevented the YPG from conjoining its territories. (With AP)