Turkish soldiers return fire on YPG militants: Military officers

ANKARA

REUTERS photo

Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militants opened fire on a Turkish border post on Sept. 7 and Turkish soldiers returned fire, Turkish military officials in the region said on Sept. 8.Turkey last month launched its "Euphrates Shield" operation, aimed at securing its border in northern Syria from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants and stopping the advance of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.Turkey sees the U.S.-backed YPG as a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK).Turkish military sources have denied a claim by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that Turkish artillery shells were fired across the border into Syria’s Afrin area and killed six YPG militants while also wounding several civilians.There was no such situation where Syria’s northwestern Afrin region was shelled by the Turkish Air Forces or by artillery, the sources told daily Hürriyet on condition of anonymity on Sept. 8.The observatory said on Sept. 8 that Turkish artillery fire struck the Afrin area late on Sept. 7.The majority-Kurdish Afrin area has been under the control of the YPG since government forces pulled out in 2012.