"Family bombed"

Nine dead in Turkish attack in northern Syria

A fighter of the Syrian Democratic Forces (archive photo)(Bild: AP/Baderkhan Ahmad)

Nine members of a family have been killed in a Turkish attack in northern Syria. A fighter jet "bombed a farming family south of Kobane" late on Sunday evening, said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

According to the statement, most of the casualties were children. Two other family members were also injured. The Syrian Kurds control a large part of oil-rich north-eastern Syria. They have had de facto autonomy there since the start of the civil war in 2011. Last week, the new Islamist leadership in Damascus reached an agreement with the SDF to integrate a Kurdish autonomous administration into the national government.

The Turkish government regards the Kurdish YPG units in north-eastern Syria as an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and has deployed troops in northern Syria, which regularly carry out attacks in Kurdish-controlled areas.

Ankara also supports the HTS militia of Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa. Its fighters, together with allied groups, captured Damascus in December and ended the decades-long rule of ruler Bashar al-Assad.