Istanbul: Turkish warplanes pounded 12 Daesh targets in Al Bab region of northern Syria on Wednesday, killing 23 militants, the military said.
The air strikes were launched as Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish troops and firepower, besieged Daesh-controlled Al Bab as part of the three-month-old Euphrates Shield operation to push the militants and a Kurdish militia away from Turkey’s border.
Wednesday’s air strikes targeted buildings used by Daesh fighters as well as three tanks and a bomb-laden vehicle, the army said. Nine similar targets were destroyed in air raids the previous evening, it said in an earlier statement.
The advance by largely Turkmen and Arab rebels backed by Turkey towards Al Bab, the last urban stronghold of Daesh in the northern Aleppo countryside, potentially pits them against both Kurdish fighters and Syrian government forces.
Last month, an air strike, which Turkey’s military initially assessed to have been carried out by the Syrian air force, killed three Turkish soldiers in the region. Moscow has said neither Russian nor Syrian armed forces carried out the attack.
