The Kurdish YPG militia killed five civilians, including three children, with a car bomb attack in Ras al-Ayn, northern Syria near Turkey's border, said Turkey's Defense Ministry on Thursday.
In a statement, the ministry said the terror group targeted civilians in the village of Tell Halaf in the Ras al-Ayn province, according to Anadolu Agency.
Car bombs have become the new attack tactic used by the Kurdish militias to target Turkish-backed fighters, but this deadly tactic has claimed the lives of tens of people in the past few weeks as blasts hit marketplaces and bus terminals in the towns of Azaz, al-Bab, Jarablus and Tel Abyad.
Turkey and the National Syrian Army on October 9 launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish-held areas, grabbing a 120-kilometre-long (70-mile) swathe of Syrian land along the frontier.
The operation left hundreds dead and caused 300,000 people to flee their homes, in the latest humanitarian crisis in Syria's brutal eight-year war.
Turkey claims the YPG is a “terrorist” offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
Ankara wants to set up a buffer zone on Syrian soil along the entire length of its 440-kilometre-long border, including to resettle some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.
Eight years of war in Syria have killed 560,000 people and driven half the pre-war population of 22 million from their homes, including more than 6 million as refugees to neighbouring countries.
Zaman Al Wasl
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