BREAKING: At least 29 Turkish soldiers were killed in Syria’s Idlib province in an aerial attack by Syrian regime forces, according to Gov. Rahmi Dogan of Turkey’s Hatay province…
Updated 6:42 PM ET, Thu February 27, 2020
(CNN)At least 29 Turkish soldiers were killed in Syria’s Idlib province on Thursday in an aerial attack by Syrian regime forces, according to Gov. Rahmi Dogan of Turkey’s Hatay province.
Thirty-six soldiers injured in the attack have been evacuated to hospitals in Turkey, Dogan said.
A security meeting is being held at the presidential palace after the “nefarious attack against heroic soldiers in Idlib who were there to ensure our national security,” according to a statement from Turkish director of communications Fahrettin Altun.
Turkey has retaliated in an effort to “revenge our martyred heroic soldiers,” the statement said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the Syrian attack, according to a statement released by the ministry. There were no further details about the content of the call.
The Syrian government has not commented on the Turkish claim.
Turkish soldiers are in the last rebel-held area of Syria as part of a 2018 de-escalation agreement between Ankara and Moscow. The Syrian government, backed by Russia, has mounted an aggressive air campaign against rebels in Idlib in recent weeks.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the last opposition-held territory in Syria in the last two months, per UN figures, in the wake of an air campaign and swift ground offensive by the Syrian regime and its Russian backers.
Tens of thousands are still on the move, and nearly 700,000 of the displaced are women and children, the UN said.
CNN’s Dakin Andone contributed to this report.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/27/middleeast/turkish-soldiers-killed-syria/index.html?