Government soldiers, Turkish forces clash in Syria

A monitoring group says Syrian government soldiers and Turkish forces have clashed near Syria’s border with Turkey, in a first such confrontation since Turkish forces entered Syrian territory without permission from Damascus.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that clashes had erupted between the Syrian soldiers and their allies on the one side and the troops enlisted with Operation Euphrates Shield — the code name for Turkey’s military operation in Syria — on the other in the northwest of the city of al-Bab in Aleppo Province.

The Syrian military has started a determined push to liberate the city from the Takiri terrorist group of Daesh and just yesterday flushed the terrorists out of two villages on the city’s southwestern edge.

Mohammad Abdullah, a political figure with Turkey-backed militant group known as the Free Syrian Army, said the recent clashes took place after the Turkish troops entered the city. He said the exchange of fire with Syrian soldiers had injured five Turkish forces and destroyed two of their armored vehicles.