(25 Dec 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Qamishli, Syria - 25 December 2023
1. Various of bombed warehouse in Qamishli
2. Various of civil defence teams trying to put out the fire
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ahmad Hussein, 19-year-old Qamishli resident:
“We were sitting at home and making cotton candy when the attack occurred. We heard the attack and it shook the whole house.”
4. Pan of smoke rising from attacked warehouse
5. People trying to put out the fire
6. Pan of attacked warehouse
7. Kids on wall watching fire
8. SOUNDBITE (Kurdish) Ali Mohammed, 60-year-old shop owner from Qamishli:
“I was in my shop when I heard the strike sound, and it was only 20 minutes later when I heard the second-strike sound, which targeted the same place. The first sound was very loud but the second was not.”
9. Member of civil defence team spraying water
10. Various of smoke rising from targeted warehouse
STORYLINE:
Turkey has launched an intensifying campaign of airstrikes against Kurdish groups in northern Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the deaths of 12 Turkish soldiers in Iraq over the weekend.
The Turkish defence ministry said in a statement Monday that it had killed at least 26 militants in airstrikes.
In Qamishili, northeast Syria, at least six civilians were killed in Turkish airstrikes Monday, according to a local hospital official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, and to a statement by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor.
The observatory also reported that 11 civilians were injured in the strikes.
Turkey has carried out 124 strikes in northeast Syria in 2023, kiling 92 people.
On Friday, Turkish officials said militants affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s attempted to infiltrate a Turkish base in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, and six Turkish soldiers were killed in the ensuing firefight.
The following day, six more Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes with Kurdish militants.
In response, Ankara launched strikes on dozens of sites it said were associated with the PKK.
Some of the strikes hit oil industry sites and vital infrastructure in northeast Syria, reducing electricity production by 50% on Saturday, according to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, a Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria that Turkey claims is affiliated with the PKK but which is a key ally of the United States.
Turkey and Washington both consider the PKK a terror group, but disagree on the status of the Syrian Kurdish groups, which have been allied with the U.S. in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
The Kurdish administration in its statement urged the United Nations to intervene, warning that the Turkish attacks could threaten the region's security.
It said that one of the strikes had hit a site near the Alaya prison in Qamishli, which houses ISIS members.
Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on X (formerly Twitter), condemned Turkey's "targeting of infrastructure and civilians' means of livelihood" in northeast Syria.
There was no immediate comment from Iraqi officials on the strikes.
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