Syrian airstrikes kill dozens of Turkish soldiers in Idlib

33 Turkish soldiers were killed and dozens more wounded in an airstrike in Syria’s Idlib province, in the bloody battle for control of the country’s last rebel stronghold.
The troops were killed when a Turkish convoy, part of reinforcements sent to the area to aid rebel groups, was subjected to heavy shelling by Russian-backed Syrian forces on Thursday morning.
Turkey retaliated to the strike by hitting Damascus regime targets “from the air and ground”, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director said.
The UN has repeatedly warned that the brutal conflict could potentially create the most serious humanitarian crisis since the start of the civil war. It also said that hundreds of thousands of people have fled the last opposition-held territory in Syria in the last two months. Tens of thousands are still on the move, and nearly 700,000 of the displaced are women and children, the UN said.
The US State Department also expressed grave concerns: “We are in contact with Turkish authorities to confirm these developments and to have more clarity on the current situation on the ground”, a spokesperson said, and added:
“We stand by our NATO Ally Turkey and continue to call for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia and Iranian-backed forces”.
NATO ambassadors met today for urgent crisis talks. Earlier, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that the talks would be held under Article 4 of NATO’s founding treaty, which allows any ally to request consultations if it feels its territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened.